homesick for the mouse house

An uncharacteristically quiet mouse with adorable bedhead ran into the kitchen this morning before she was fully awake. Outside, the rain was coming down steadily. The light was gray. She looked bleary and confused under the too-bright flourescent light.

Good morning, I said.
Squeak, she whispered.

I was in the middle of making coffee but turned the heat off the water when I caught sight of her big, red-rimmed eyes.

What is it?

I want to go home, whispered the mouse. Her chin wobbled and tears were gathering and beginning to spill over her lower lashes.

But this is your home, little mouse! I'm your mama mouse!

Tears were slowly and steadily dripping down her cheeks now. She told me she didn't "recognize anything here" and wanted to go to her real home, which was "in a big field, under an old old tree." What was she doing in this strange house?

The pretend mouse story was the gauziest wrapping around a heart of very real, disoriented feelings. You could see right through it. 

I picked her up and took her to the couch, where she tried to burrow into my chest. She told me how she longed to go home, where things are just her size and right for her, and where there are lots of foods she likes to eat. Though we might love her here, "there is much more love" in her real home. I'm not even a person, she told me. And then: what is a person? And what is love? I don't even know! (More tears).

She continued: How do you even know me? You look like a human being, but I'm a mouse. How did I get here?

I told her I had known her and loved her since the day she was born, and every moment since then. Five years!

Frances gathered herself together and looked at me steadily. I live in mouse-years, as you know.

In my mind I heard that haunting, beautiful line from a Neutral Milk Hotel song, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea: can't believe how strange it is to be anything at all.

This empathetic sponge of a mama, emotional amoeba that I am, sat and clutched my little girl on the couch and tried not to cry with her. (Her sensitive brother roamed the house looking for "gifts" which he deposited next to us, asking Didi if she was happy now with each new offering). I wanted to honor her suffering, the truth of what she was tapping, without sending her over the edge.

Her lost little mouse was expressing a primal in-the-world-but-not-of-it realization, an existential shiver that shook her from whisker to tail. To feel oneself a mouse amongst people, to feel onself not quite fitting into the world as it is, to feel one's separateness and yearning for a home where everything is beautiful and these distances between us disappear. A real home, a mouse house. It is a lot for a small person to hold all at once.

Which is why, thankfully, this moment soon slid naturally into more light-hearted mouse family play. How tenderly I felt towards her. How painful growing up can be. How strange it is to be anything at all.

carrot and stick

As Frances explained to every adult whose path she crossed on this brilliant Thursday (every adult who showed a shred of interest in her, that is), today was Rosh Hashanah Day, so there was no school. Instead we spent the breezy morning at Quiet Waters Park. As time wore on the playground filled with more and more children, until suddenly it was packed with chaotic toddlers and crashing too-bigs and Gabriel ran up to me with serious alarm in his eyes, grabbing my pants and explaining: there are too many children here, we have to go NOW!

So we did. Post office, grocery store, baking with Frances during Gabriel's nap, visiting with a neighbor friend, a bit of reading, a bit of drawing, dinner, bath, and there you have it. Sounds like a satisfying day, right? I thought so too. But for my new kindergartener, something was lacking. Where are the organized activities, and what are the rules? Good lord, where is the structure in all this having-a-pleasant-day-at-home business?

The poor girl was driven to such lengths as creating cards with numbers on them directing us to our proper chairs at the dining room table, suggesting new rules for our family (among them today were "no fake laughing allowed" and "no hitting people with chopsticks"), and devising ways she might be helpful and thus earn whatever our equivalent of respect tickets might be. Of course we have no school store in which she could spend her respect tickets. And we have no tickets. But if only we did...!

The kid has never been interested in being 'a good helper' for its own sake (that line of motivation occasionally works beautifully with her brother). But the idea of earning something - of moving ahead on the board game, collecting rewards - suddenly helping is where it's at. Frances has asked if we could have a "system" like the one at school. Think stickers, color-coded, perhaps a chart displayed publicly in the kitchen. The consequences and rewards would be clear and well-defined (time out vs. candy). Tonight she asked if she could do the dishes every night "for the next sixteen years." (Just think of the respect tickets she'll be swimming in by 2026!)

Geez, what have I been missing out on? In a way it seems so concrete, oppressively so, but I suppose a five year old is concrete! This is where I always trip up with Frances; I fall into the mistake of treating her as if she understood things the way I do. As if she had some sophisticated perspective on her own rocky emotions. But she's a kid, one with a wild imagination and a tendency to get stressed out by the unpredictable nature of this world and the people inhabiting it. Adults giveth and taketh away, and sometimes it feels cruelly arbitrary.

No, you cannot watch a video today. Because. Because I said so.

What if I could point to some garish chart on the refrigerator covered in gold stars and sad faces the next time she asked WHY? WHY CAN'T I??? Maybe such overt documentation would help Frances feel more in control and thus more relaxed.

Or maybe spending half an hour drawing pictures like the one above after school serves the same purpose. I hope so, because the truth is I'm too lazy to create and enforce a "system." And frankly, I'm too attached to the power I wield, even though it may feel cruel and arbitrary at times. I want to reserve the freedom to do things simply because they seem like a good idea at the time. 

And how about that picture Frances drew? It is of an imaginary school, not hers, but you can see how powerful these first days have been. The headings in each box are Ball, Music, Homework, Jim (Gym), School Bus, Recess, Line, Rules, and Sharing.

I am fascinated by the ways Frances talks about and illustrates racial differences. Her teacher is black and many of her classmates are too, but she doesn't understand them as belonging to one group. Frances has always understood people as falling somewhere on the lighter brown to darker brown continuum (she herself is "light brown"). She always describes new people in great detail, and has recently talked a lot about one of her new friends who wears her hair in corn rows with beads (how she admires them!). The detail below shows a little girl with blue beads on the ends of her braids, dancing in music class with her teacher.

the real new year

Doesn't it seem more natural to make our new year's resolutions in September? Rosh Hashanah works seasonally. But what exactly about the gray days of January inspires clarity, motivation, renewed dedication to our plans? The new school year is my new year. Give me a hint of cool air on a September morning and that residual fluttering in the belly (that I now feel for my kids heading off to school, rather than myself), and I'm ready to disinfect the cruddy humidifier, fold the basket of laundry that's been sitting in the living room for three days, and make a big slow cooker full of porridge.

Yes! There it is up there, before I cooked it. You see oatmeal, brown rice, barley, red quinoa, red lentils, and wheat berries. Oh boy. I found this recipe online last year and keep tinkering with the ingredients and proportions. However it turns out, it is always absurdly austere. The growing edge of breakfast. I haven't had it in months, but something about this shift in season made me ready, made me crave the stuff. I'm going to need fuel like this for all the resolutions that are bubbling up to the surface these days.

I credit our time in Vermont for the clarity and energy I feel lately, as much as the mercifully temperate days we've enjoyed this weekend. It was just what a vacation should be: an opportunity to remember who I am, and return to regular life with new motivation to become that person. And so I am sloughing off the effects of August's heavy days and the stress of approaching transitions, in favor of the lightness I feel now that the transitions are well and happily under way.

My resolutions are not very exciting, granted, but worth articulating nonetheless. To attend a yoga or pilates class regularly; to make a lot more time for novel-reading; to write more; to be more present to my children (especially now that I have sufficient child care during the week, hooray!); to make time for meditation/prayer at least a few times a week; to not take on more than I can handle - that is, to not forget the primary importance of the previous items on this list because I feel too frantic and busy. (And believe me, I can make busy out of a lazy Sunday afternoon. It starts inside and manifests in playdates I've arranged that I'm ambivalent about, volunteering to help with something I don't have time for, tackling a complicated dinner I've conceived with two hungry whiny kids underfoot. Why, Meagan??)

So. Slowness, care, intention...purging the pursuit of busy. It seems possible because of the new time Annapolis Elementary School and Lucky Duck Daycare have afforded me, and because I feel a fresh commitment to asking for what I need (and likewise, saying no when I need to). 

Of course I will still yell and check email while Frances tells me about her day and try to squeeze in one more errand even though it will make us late. I'll feel resentful instead of asking Mike to help with the dishes (which, when I finally ask, he will happily do). Of course I will. The lady nibbling her nails while she types these words knows about the staying power of bad habits. But maybe I'll do those things a little less. Or at least notice when I do.

Happy new year, friends.

p.s. Just in case you're curious, here are a few practical changes I've made that hopefully will facilitate a more peaceful approach to daily life. I would love to hear about how you approach some of these things and make the time and space you need...

Mike and I scheduled a weekly check-in to talk family business. The hope is that we'll save up all the "did you call so-and-so?" and "the car really needs an oil change" and "where will we spend next summer?" comments that we throw at each other over the course of the week in between everything else going on (thus subtly ratcheting up the stress level).  We've done it once. So far, so good.  

What else? I put a Saturday pilates class on the calendar, and I've been going. I read and/or write during Gabriel's naps, when he's home with me. The adolescent in me has always resisted this kind of "scheduling" (where's the sponaneity and fun in that?) but maybe I'm growing up. A little. I certainly feel awed by the way that structure can set us free (toddlers and adults alike).

chugga chugga cous cous

This is what I did with Gabriel on Tuesday: made some things that go out of construction paper, then borrowed some books about things that go at the library, then read about things that go at home, then motored the paper things that go around the backyard. With his big sister off at kindergarten all day, there isn't much to distract him from the objects of his affection. The power, the mystery, and the satisfying loud noises! The beep beep of a dump truck in reverse! So it was not surprising that the "chugga chugga cous cous" chant developed over curried chick peas and couscous at dinner, nor that Gabriel found it hilarious and worth repeating many many times.  

What does strike me as surprising is the degree to which our children's delight can become our own. A few years ago, I couldn't imagine searching out the highest spot on a playground in order to gaze at the excavators and bulldozers beeping and dumping and pushing in a distant construction site. But with Gabriel, it is sheer pleasure. The joy he takes in such a scene is irresistible. I love what he loves. Why? Because he loves it!

This week has felt absolutely golden. The only shadow is a sadness lurking around in a corner of my heart. I cannot ignore a growing sense of loss over not having had days like this with Frances. I worked full time until she was nearly three, when her brother was born. A Tuesday morning at the playground with the whole morning before us and nothing to do, no groceries to get, no bath to take, no toys to clean up before bed. Just open time and a feeling of quiet possibility. What shall we do together next? 

This is what I did with Gabriel yesterday: dropped him off at the Lucky Duck daycare and went to work in Baltimore.

Gabriel has been begging to go to his school ever since Frances began kindergarten. We had visited a handful of times and he always loved it, but of course I was there too. So I was nervous.

We walked in and Gabriel ran right over to the train table. His enthusiasm was such that the other children followed him and they all began playing together. He did look up at me to give me a hug goodbye, then went straight back to playing.

Well.

I stood around for awhile. Eventually I realized that it was time for me to go. So I did, with tears running down my cheeks. It could not have been better ... but oh! My little one! Warm, thoughtful Lynda, who runs Lucky Duck out of her home, kindly sent me a slide show of pictures titled "Gabriel's First Day" while I was still at work. More tears! Apparently he had an excellent day, playing with bigger kids, napping without a fuss, and being his general sweet self.

I picked him up around 4:30 and as we pulled into the driveway, Frances tore out of the house to meet us. She thrust this card into Gabriel's hands.

It reads: Welcome Mama and GKHB. Hi both of you. Gabriel did you have a good day Papa is working and I was about to (?) my paper but a hopper* (?) upstairs. Love FJHB

There was a fantastic picture of Gabriel with a basketball on the card's front. I knew she'd been working on it ever since she got home from school. I wanted to squeeze them both way too hard.

We are chugga chugga cous cousing right through this time of multiple transitions. I'm not complaining about how easy and wonderful it has been, I swear. But you know me, I couldn't keep barreling down the tracks without stopping to take a breath, feel the feelings a bit, and share them with you.

Thanks for reading, friends. And now, back onto our respective trains...


*Hoppers are the beastly spider crickets that invade our house this time of year.