ladies who lunch (on soft greasy mall pretzels)

 

There we are, basking in the neon glow and muted excitement emanating from so many young shoppers in the suburban uniform of the day (skinny-skinny jeans, Ugg boots, little tops, shiny blown-straight hair) meandering all around us. It was a teacher development day last Friday for Anne Arundel County schools. It was a gorgeous day too, but we decided to hang out at the mall, of all places.

My intimates know about my mall disease (symptoms include headaches, a feeling of intolerable heat, serious disorientation, all developing within an hour or so). I've probably been to the mall here in Annapolis four or fives times over the past two years. I'm not proud of being such a sensitive shopper. I surely like having the stuff it is such a drag to procure. And I feel a pleasurable kind of nostalgic tenderness towards the packs of teenagers that roam the mall. On Friday I discovered that Frances does not seem to suffer from her mama's mall disease, and thank goodness. She's an awesome shopping partner; she kept me afloat.

 

Here she is at our first stop. Looking for a birthday gift, we passed one of those little islands of commerce in the center of the mall hall, and a persuasive Israeli woman named Gabriella suggested Frances might like to try her very expensive curling iron. Well, did she ever! I have never before succumbed to the siren song of those mid-mall hawkers, but Friday was like time out of time. We were up for anything.

I usually work from home on Fridays, and Gabriel spends the day at Lucky Duck. It seemed strange to send him off when I wasn't working, but his willfull, irrational, toddler-style contrarian side is asserting itself vigorously of late and I welcomed the break. I was going to try to find alternate child care for Frances, but then it struck me that the day would afford us more exclusive time together than we've probably had since her brother was born. So in the end I took the day off, and we followed our whims all over the mall, starting with the curling iron lady.

We acquired one enormous greasy soft pretzel, The Young Birders Guide for Jackson's birthday, James and the Giant Peach for cousin Lily, Ramona the Pest for Frances, a cord that enabled me to finally charge a hand-me-down Ipod, two bundles of very appealing socks for Frances and Gabriel from H&M, and a package of Halloween-themed silly bands proudly purchased by Frances, using her own money, which she solemnly removed from her blue Hello Kitty wallet and passed to the mustachioed teenaged cashier with bated breath. She looked at me with enormous eyes. She whispered: Will I get change back? I realized she thought it was up to him. As in, I give you some money, then if you like the looks of me, you give me some money back. 

Dear girl, if I were the cashier I'd empty the quarter tray into your little hands.

We had a beautiful day. We really did. We ignored normal mealtimes, we didn't need to rush home for Gabriel's nap. Time out of time. After the mall we walked to the playground. Frances has been been begging all the adults in her life to hold her around the waist so she can practice doing the monkey bars for the last six months. Usually I find it tiresome, because I have perceived absolutely no progress and she wraps her legs around me with the same iron grip, near terrified, every time we do the drill.

But Friday was different! I noticed her going from rung to rung on this climbing apparatus like it was no big thing. When her feet were only inches from the ground, it wasn't scary, and it wasn't hard, either. I pointed this out to her and it was completely freeing.

She was so proud. She told me that next week, she'd be able to do the monkey bars all by herself. (But then on Saturday we went to the same playground with Gabriel, and she did it! Over and over! She was amazing. We were all giddy with the joy of her accomplishment.)

We ran to the library, so we'd have time to get books before it got too late. We even sat on the couches and cracked ourselves up reading about naughty Squirrel Nutkin. 

 

It is my wont, my habit, to worry about my kids when they aren't with me, and to feel obligated to rush to them as soon as I am able. When we approached an acceptable time to pick up Gabriel, I started to feel anxious. It's crazy for a mother to be having a good time at the playground and library while her toddler is in someone else's care, right?

Or not. In the end I decided it was actually just fine. The playground and the library were such fun with Frances, and Gabriel is perfectly happy with his friends at Lucky Duck. In fact, we ended up staying once we finally got there and doing a bit of crafting with Miss Lynda and the gang. That was a happy reassurance for me, that my decisions were okay for everyone involved, but that's not the point.

The point is I really needed some uncompromised, undivided time with Frances. Within about five minutes of coming home with both kids, we all reverted to our more usual irritating behaviors - the children competing for attention, Gabriel resorting to physical aggression, Frances baiting him and then tattling, Mama yelling and threatening time outs. How quickly things turned more combative. How quickly we lost that easy companionship!

Or maybe not. It had been right there all along, and it still is. I just need to remember that making the space and time for it to emerge naturally is so important. For the both of us.

still us

I don't talk much about Mike in these posts. You have read many an intimate detail about our family life, and goodness me, to think of the secret soft parts of our children that I have here exposed...! But when it comes to the beloved adults in my life, Homemade Time offers pretty limited information.

Let's put an end to that. Just for tonight.

I would like to tell you something about Mike: I love him. A lot! I like him too. We spent 26 hours together over the weekend, and friends, I am happy to report: I think he's the bee's knees. The cat's meow. Or is it pajamas? No matter. He's both.

Except he doesn't like cats very much, which I already knew but learned about in greater detail while sitting on a flat boulder just off a hiking trail. The autumn leaves you see here are what I was looking at while we talked about the value and limitations of life with animals. (Jim the Fish merited little comment). 

We dropped the children off with my mom in Lancaster and drove to an area north of Reading where we spent much of the day hiking to and from a rocky outcrop on the Appalachian Trail called The Pinnacle. 

We had dinner in the one lively spot we could find in desolate, sad Reading before going to see a movie. A movie! And then we talked about the movie. It was as if the Mike and Meagan who existed before the children were born had been carrying on in an alternate universe all this time. A portal opened up, we stepped right through, and there we were. It was us. We're still us.

We still like to walk and talk. We like to talk about music, religion, books, the future, the past, and all the things that matter most. We still like to buy candy at a convenience store and stash it in my purse on the way to the movies. Mike still makes me laugh so hard I guffaw, and I guffaw all the harder when he doesn't get what's so funny. And all that talking I mentioned? We still get lost (so many times!) because we're talking and not paying attention.

It was a great relief, and a great joy, to find our old selves right where we had left them, just waiting for us to get rid of those kids for a little while so we could slip back into being us.

I like that my 101st blog post is about this blessed discovery of continuity, of a love and way of being together that is the same and yet growing all the time. In the noise and diverted attentions of everyday life with little ones, it can be hard to know. Part of me, I confess, was a little scared about what we would find in the forgotten hills of Pennsylvania...but it wasn't a bit scary. To live for a day and a night as a couple, rather than co-parents, was a gift. 

And do you know what else was a gift? Staying in bed in the morning until we felt like getting out of it! Lazing about until 8 am! How outrageously satisfying.

So then we drove home and I started to miss our babies. We pulled up to my mom's house and they weren't there! We soon found them at a downtown playground. While I was anticipating a dramatic run across the lawn into each others' arms (and had to stop myself from sprinting when I caught site of them on a seesaw with my mom), they acted as if we'd been gone for twenty minutes. I went in for a hug and in response Gabriel asked if I'd push him on the swing now. Do it high, okay? Really high!

So I did. Some really high-flying big kids came and joined us. They did amazing tricks, leaping and somersaulting off the swings. We happy five applauded and shouted our approval.


My mom made all this possible. Oh, she is a treasure! The children adore her, and so do we. Besides being a little tired, I think she survived her solo flight with the kids beautifully. (At least, that's what I'm telling myself, so I can keep up this whole everything-was-fantastic! story line). 

We spent the afternoon visiting with neighbors and friends, comparing notes on apple butter making, schools, gardens, kid sleeping arrangements, mutual friends, and exchanging hand-me-downs. Watching the kids run in and out of houses, clambering up and down porch steps. Lots of easy, peaceful family fun. This in itself is a delight, but on Sunday afternoon, in the middle of it all, I felt something more rooting down inside me. A quiet sparkle of refreshed confidence. I love my husband and he loves me. It began with us; there is a very good reason we are making all of this together. 

reflections on leaf rubbing

When Frances comes home from school, we check her red folder together. The left side pocket is labeled "leave at home" and the right side pocket is labeled "bring back to school." The left side is typically jammed with papers from her day that look a lot like busy work to me: photocopied pictures that she has carefully colored in, worksheets on which she has written the letter M five times or circled all the words that start with K. Most nights, on the right side of the folder, there is homework to do. 

Given how many hours she must spend doing this stuff during the day, and the intensely structured life of the kindergarten classroom, I've taken to giving her as much freedom and run-around time as possible in the afternoons. After I pick her up, we usually stay and play on the playground for awhile. I linger because once we're home, she dives into her relatively mindless homework and the heavier lifting that is Processing Her Day. Some afternoons she talks for hours, focusing particularly on fascinating discipline incidents and the "sweet food in plastic bags" her friends bring in their lunches. (This invariably leads to questioning my stubborn use of waxed paper and little reusable containers. Why, why, WHY?)

Her post-school mood is precarious. She's often ragged around the edges and can be tough to deal with. Such was the case when I picked her up today. She got very negative and irritable when Gabriel did some things on the playground that she feels too nervous to try herself. But the day was too beautiful, the Eastport bridge too picturesque, and when she kept complaining on the drive home, I turned up the music to drown her out.

It was The Velvet Underground, and both kids grew silent during I'll Be Your Mirror. Frances asked to hear it again, and again. Listening to those lyrics as a girlfriend made me feel a little funny, but they work in a new way as a mother - especially as the mother of an intense little person struggling to cope with her feelings.  For example:

I find it hard to believe you don't know
The beauty you are
But ... if you don't
let me be your eyes
A hand in your darkness, so you won't be afraid

Nico sounds a little different with Frances and Gabriel in the backseat, doesn't she?

After the pop music worked its magic on us, I decided to scrap the elaborate dinner-making plans. I needed some time with my daughter, rather than moving around each other in the kitchen as we tend to our own projects and Gabriel becomes more and more unhinged. So I moved the little table to the deck for a round of colorful, satisfying leaf rubbing.

We hunted the most excellent leaves in the backyard.

 

Frances wanted to make a picture for her cousin Lily, who will soon become a big sister. We both contributed rubbings and helped each other choose colors. We used a set of gorgeous homemade crayons, a thoughtful gift from the kids' summer babysitter Kelsey, who heated her own childhood crayons and poured the wax into madeline molds. 

 

Here is Frances. I don't know if you can tell from these pictures, but she is happy. Happy working. I realized today that giving Frances space - which she uses to relive every minute of her school day through pictures, homework, and constant talk - is maybe not the best thing for her. Maybe her brain needs a little help switching gears into something more peaceful.

I have hesitated to add any "activities" to her day during the week. But good gracious, I had forgotten that we do activities together. And the kind of activities we tend to pursue are of the leaf-rubbing variety, rather than the coloring-the-leaves-green-on-the-worksheet variety. She is missing more open-ended creative pursuits, and she is missing time with me.

 Here is the girl I know. Such relief, to be with her on a Thursday afternoon! Here she was not competing with her brother (who was cooperatively playing with a truck while we worked), or with kids at school, or feeling twisted up inside. When we get out the crayons and sit in the autumn sun together, I am being a kind of mirror, reminding her of who she is, allowing that person to shine with an easy light. And yes, she reflects me back to myself too, dear girl. Making leaves magically appear on paper together, I felt down to my depths how much I had been missing her.

self-sacrifice and other puzzles of personhood

This is how I was feeling on Saturday.

Expansive, free, golden. I spent it with the kids doing the most mundane things, but we did them all with gusto. The morning was cool, the farmer's market cheerful, the swing set inviting, the afternoon sun glorious. We drove home from errands with all the windows down, listening to many good songs on the radio at a volume inappropriate for tender ears. Despite the fact that I was spending a lot of time with small people who regularly hang on my legs and beg to be picked up, I felt a particularly happy sense of space and freedom.

But today began with Gabriel's all-too-familiar croupy cough echoing down the hall around 4:30 am. There is something fundamentally and deeply distressing about one's child not getting enough air. I always feel panicky when I hear that barking cough, and I did this morning too.

But it's happened many times, and I must confess, in the early morning darkness a disappointed realization followed closely on the heels of the panic. Before I made it to his bedroom door I bid a sad adieu to all the things I wanted to do today. Goodbye, gym and doctor's appointment. Goodbye, rainy day baking with Gabriel. Goodbye, naptime writing.

This morning made me think of the early days with my babies, days of operating with only one free hand and having to think strategically about using the bathroom. How quickly we learn that our agenda is vulnerable at every turn! And how frustrating it can be to try and muscle through things, denying the power of a tiny baby to make even the simplest tasks impossible. There is something I had to learn, about opening myself, loosening my long fingers and holding the controls with a lighter grip.

Just like his baby self, Gabriel would get upset if I left his side. As our doctor said this afternoon, you don't want to upset a "crouper." Agitation worsens the barking and wheezing. So I told him we would stick together today, which we did. I canceled my doctor's appointment, we said goodbye to Frances and Mike, and I set about following his lead.

It was surprising, how hard I found it. I love spending time with my son, but today he was a moody, slow-paced, home-bound version of himself. He wanted to make train tracks together. Sure, I said, my back turned to him as I clicked on WAMU to stream the Diane Rehm in the family room. It was a weird gesture of self-assertion, some clinging to my own interests and directions. Yeah, I'll play trains, but you're not the only thing in my life, you know! And of course I couldn't listen to the show and listen to Gabriel, and the noise was irritating, so I turned it off.

The day featured a series of abandoned emails, laundry left on the stairs, magazines dropped back down immediately after picking them up. Why was it so hard to just be with Gabriel? I felt like I finally found my way to him after an abbreviated early nap. He woke up way too soon with the awful barking, crying and grumpy. After many unsuccessful attempts to soothe him we sat down in front of the laptop and found an innocuous kid's show on Netflix. He soon quieted and assumed the hypnotized video look, which was my cue that I could sneak off and assert my independence elsewhere in the house. But I didn't. I snuggled down into the cushions with him and almost fell asleep, warm and heavy together.

It was my homemade time turnaround. My acceptance that we were going to be here now, so to speak, and do it together, and that was so much better than what I had been doing. We played with cars. I helped him decorate a little pumpkin in the pure style that Gabriel wanted to pursue, featuring stickers and a lot of glue.

We sat down on the floor and sorted acorns. These are our alphabet acorns, collected on Saturday, then painted and written on.

By "sort," I mean we sat on the kitchen floor, lazily rolling them around while Gabriel cracked himself up by misidentifying letters. He insisted that A was G, and K was P. Ha ha!!

But it actually was kind of funny. Just because we were all, you know, being here now. A person just feels happier, quicker to laugh, when she lets go of her grand schemes and self-insistence. At least, I did today.

But here's what I'm wondering: is what I'm describing self-sacrifice? Is the gesture we repeat over and over as parents - relinquishing control and coming to meet our children wherever they may be - is that good for us? Does it help us grow? (And if so, in which direction?) What does it mean to slow it all down and pace ourselves in a new way? To be able to give up our plans at the drop of a hat - or the sound of a cough?

It is part of why so many of us feel ourselves to be firmly planted in adulthood only when we become parents. Of course, I often feel like a kid. And as I kid I was always ready to be a helper, to be good, to go out of my way. It was a little bit nuts at times, and I still do it: is there some way I could inconvenience myself for your benefit? Oh please??

But when I was a kid there were limits. I would be awfully mad at anyone who interrupted me during the last thirty pages of my novel, or suggested I wouldn't be able to go out tonight after all. What does it mean that we learn to place others' storybooks and evening agendas at the center of our lives?

And why do I feel so much happier when I give it all up and sit down with the acorns on the floor?

I will not attempt to answer this now. It is good for our children that we give them baths even when we don't feel like it. I think it's good for us too, but ... it's a bit more complicated. There's gender stuff to muddy the waters, there's preserving space for ourselves. There's definitely an upside to dirty kids.

I do, however, feel confident about one particular good thing that comes from being here now - living in homemade time - with my kids. It comes with a deeply peaceful sense of intimacy, one that begins with nursing (an ultimate gesture of giving oneself away, if ever there was one) and grows with days like today.

Frances and Gabriel asked if we could do Songs in the Chair tonight, after many months without, and many months of the two of them fighting over who gets to sing a song - any song - in competitive efforts to prove their abilities. Songs in the Chair is when the two of them climb into the glider in Gabriel's room and get snuggled up, and I sit on the ottoman facing them. I rock the chair back and forth and sing lots of favorites to them while they sit open-mouthed, staring at me with the same unblinking big brown soul-windows open so wide that I struggle to return their gaze without looking away or laughing or crying. 

I sang Wild Mountain Thyme, and Goodnight Irene, and All Things Bright and Beautiful, and the Donovan song Happiness Runs. They sang with me, moreso than in the past. They were so big and so little at the same time. I felt us to be rocking and singing together, if only for a moment, in some kind of intimacy that touches timelessness, a place where love is greater than death.