how a determined tick family failed to mess with mike's birthday

There's the cool snake we saw on our little hike yesterday at Martinak State Park, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. That was before we discovered the full scope of the tick invasion, around 8:30 last night. I had discovered one in our tent, and two on Frances over the course of the day, but wasn't too concerned.

We went camping for the weekend to celebrate Mike's birthday today. Our first tent camping family adventure was going pretty darn well. We arrived Friday evening and unloaded all the gear some friends had generously loaned us. Frances and Gabriel were thrilled to discover three other kids in neighboring sites and all were soon playing Acrobats in the Circus and begging for "airplane" swing pushes on the nearby playground.

The children actually slept that night, and the next day we visited Adkins Arboretum, one of our favorite spots around here.

Gabriel and Mike crashed adorably that afternoon, and Frances and I quietly made hot chocolate before heading back to the playground, where I watched her and her new friend Addie literally run into each other's arms, joyous to be reunited after 2 hours apart.

There was a walk down to Watts Creek, which runs into the Choptank River, and some spirited pirate play on yet another playground with Addie and her crew, plus some new boys. Mike and I were stunned to realize we should have brought books, because the children were remarkably independent playing in Kids Only Land. An amazing shift that merits its own blog post, but for now, let's get back to the ticks.

Everyone was ready for bed and gathered in the tent. With the last bit of light we planned to check each other for ticks. Oh, there's one on Gabriel. Okay, glad we got it. Mike, what's that? Two on your thigh? And another on me? Okay, well, good thing we found those. At this point I was trying to be cheerful while frantically scanning everyone in the near darkness. I figured we would have to just check in the morning, so I headed off to the well-lit bathhouse to pee one last time before bed. There I found THREE fiercely determined monsters that had attached themselves to a rather sensitive area of my body, which truth be told sent me over the edge and jogging back to the tent, with visions of little tick teeth digging into my children. I told Mike and we made a quick decision to get the heck out of there.

The children were good, so good. They sat snuggled in the car, minimally whiny despite the late hour and strangeness of Mama and Papa taking the tent down and packing everything up in the dark. Was it crazy? Maybe, but I'm still glad we did it. We got home around 10:30, put the sleeping children in their beds, and found more little ticks on each other. There were all sizes -- grandma ticks, grandpa ticks, aunt and uncle ticks, so many cousins and countless tiny baby ticks. This morning we bathed the kids and tweezed more off of them.

Despite this, I LOVE today! I love Mike's birthday. I love that we decided to leave tickland (especially since it rained all night and all morning) and that today, Frances went downstairs with me at 6:30, found her shoes, and ran outside to play on our brand new playset. In the pouring rain. With whoops and yells of happiness. (Which I had to ask her to stop, since some people sleep past 7 on Sunday morning). The playset was a gift from her grandparents, assembled on Friday while she was at school, and this morning was her first peek. Mike and I felt our hearts bursting, watching her play. It was a perfect start to one of the very best days of the year, May 23rd.

Frances oftens reminds me that she's a homebody. I feel like one today too. It's good to be home, together.

bubble beards

You know, bubble shirts are funny. Bubble hats, bubble earrings, bubble shoes - these are amusing accessories, to be sure. But nothing beats the hijinks and hilarity inspired by a groundbreaking innovation Gabriel stumbled upon yesterday: the bubble beard.

I know. 

My Amish number takes the cake.

let's play basketball with each other!

That's what Gabriel says to me when we go to the Rec Center. Or when we're in the backyard: let's play soccer ball with each other! There is something about the "with each other" that melts my heart.

We've developed a routine that we indulge in at least two or three times a week. After we drop Frances at school in the morning, we head over to the Rec Center. Gabriel hangs with Ms. Vette in the child care area, and I spend half an hour on a machine, half-engaged by a battered glossy magazine, or The Today Show or whatever is on the big flat screen TVs. Then I exchange my drivers license for a ball at the front desk and run down the stairs, all sweaty and full of happy anticipation, ready to see Gabriel's face light up at the sight of Mama and a basketball! Even though I do this every time, his smile never fails, his run is always his very fastest, his shout is always the same: YOU BROUGHT ME A BASKETBALL, MAMA! He sandwiches the ball in between us and hugs around my legs.

And we head to the courts. Yesterday we heard the sounds of an experienced player shooting hoops, so Gabriel ran straight to him to watch. He likes to be as close as possible to men who are playing, and narrate their game. HE MADE A BASKET!!! Or sometimes: he ALMOST made a basket!! Some people think this is sweet, and some people are a little annoyed by the distraction. Yesterday's solitary player welcomed the attention.

What's that, little man? You gonna shoot some 3 pointers? You gonna play with me?

Gabriel joyfully squatted down and rolled the ball towards the man, then did a little dance, waiting for the ball to come back.

Your mama play ball? To me: you play basketball?

Oh, gosh, no no, I said sheepishly. Well, I play with him. I mean, I like to play a little. I'm a good roller, you know.

I'm so used to thinking of myself as totally inept when it comes to balls, I start to panic if someone suggests I might be able to play. Anything. Ask my intimates. Frisbee games have reduced me to tears, church picnic softball games have inspired me to spearhead the clean up efforts. Anything to avoid begin asked to join in. Oh, me? I'd much rather collect trash on my hands and knees than frolic in the sunshine, thanks anyway!

At the Rec Center with Gabriel, I am trying on a sporty me, in the safety of Gabriel's adoring smile. He yells YOU DID IT! when I make a basket. He is my biggest fan. And playing ball is fun. I feel like I am in someone else's body sometimes, as I skip down the stairs in my running shoes with a ball tucked under my arm to meet my boy.

It's just one of Gabriel's gifts to me. Do I play basketball? Yeah. I do.

the contagious joy of being two

The sound of a seal barking down the hall marked the first moments of May 1st, 2010 in our house. The dreaded croup came to visit my boy again, and at 3 am, as it always does. I was scarred by a particularly severe episode of croup during Gabriel's babyhood (my one and only ER visit as a parent, thus far) so my body shook itself from sleep and went into action immediately. My feet were on the floor and headed towards Gabriel's room before the rest of me knew what was happening.

I took him into our bathroom and turned on the shower. He sat on my lap facing me, coughing and wheezing miserably. I reached around and scratched his back and told him how the steaminess would make him feel better. He looked dubious, but eventually the wheezing did subside and he grew pensive and relaxed in my lap, staring down at his fingers.

Suddenly he looked up at me, a new light shining in his eyes.

My finger looks like a crayon!!

It does? Cool.

A few moments passed. Gabriel began tapping lightly on my breastbone. Another smile spread across his face.

Your body looks like syrup!!

The color of my skin? It's brown?

Yes! Like syrup! For pancakes!

Gabriel made many more extraordinary observations as he emerged from croup-induced misery. He seemed to be loving life all the more exuberantly for his brush with constricted air passages. We eventually went down to the living room, where in the middle of a story he looked at me with grave urgency and practically shouted: I need some pasta bugs with magic green sauce! PLEASE!!

A bowl of pasta and two clementines later, Mike joined us and Gabriel demonstrated what 'grooving' looks like and then did a song and dance number too elaborate to go into here. Then came a request for 'french toast with jam and oranges all over the top' and hot cocoa and flipping a knife block onto its side to create a house for Mama, Papa and Baby Caterpillar to live in and at this point I was wondering if reduced oxygen flow to the brain had had some strange effect on Gabriel. But no, actually this is just him. All this happened before 5 am, and can you believe I felt not a shred of resentment? Some delirium, sure, but I wasn't annoyed.

Instead I marveled at the Gabriel-ness of Gabriel. His unimpeded expression of his own imaginative, sweet and wacky self. In his words, spoken with such determination and intention, and in his physical movements - long dramatic sweeps with his arms, small jumps in rapid succession, erratic dancing with a basketball - he bares his beautiful soul to all the world. It is the free, creative expressiveness that makes it all the more beautiful; a gift.

I am wondering what we lose as we grow up. (And what we preserve through making art, through encounters with art, of all kinds). What would it be like to live so porously, in such a fluid encounter with the outside world - the one that rushes up to meet Gabriel ever new, ever full of possibilities, jokes, knowledge, beauty, fears? What would it be like to fully claim one's particularity without feeling twisted up inside about it?

Because Gabriel certainly has not cornered the market on imagination, sweetness, wackiness. You and I partake of these things too (along with aggression and strong appetites). Not to get all inner child mumbo jumbo style on you, but I think there might be a leaping jumping squatting shouting picture-making poetry-speaking really real exuberantly alive you who certainly has to abide by certain rules and has undoubtably been a little bit squashed by various experiences BUT she is there! She seeps out in everything you do.

Gabriel is teaching me about that. With him I realize that I want to throw things, hard, just like he does. It's kind of nice to know. 

The sunshine outside my bedroom window is glorious. I am tired as heck. My sickie is taking a nap, my big girl is eating blue cotton candy somewhere with my mother, my husband is digging in the dirt outside, and a chocolate cake is cooling in the kitchen. Life feels damn good right now.

Happy May Day, friends.