superbad

Here is what happened when Gabriel first made James Brown's acquaintance this morning.

How is it that I waited nearly three and a half years to have this particular dance/couch jumping party? Somehow the combination of a too-quiet rainy morning, fragrant granola toasting in the oven, and a selfish desire to rouse my boy's jet-lagging grandmother (who came to us last night straight from her annual idyll in Ashland, Oregon) inspired me.

And now? Now Gabriel has a word for his power fantasies that alternately involve karate, volcanoes, dinosaurs, monster trucks, knights, ninjas, superheroes, wild horses, and football.

He's superbad.

a heart is for love

I have been sick to varying degrees over the past couple of weeks. But yesterday the conditions were just right (I was discouraged, everything planned was easy to cancel, and Mike could help out), so I finally declared a Sick Day. Usually when I am sick enough to succumb and take a day of rest, our family becomes unmoored. Mama is...in bed? In the afternoon? The world becomes an absurd place where routines fly out the window and anything could happen. The sight of me halfheartedly gazing at a magazine on the couch at 5 pm instead of making dinner and dancing to our latest favorite song is fantastically disturbing to my kids.  

At least, it usually is. Yet on Sunday everyone was kind and accepting of my need for quiet time. Maybe my children are growing old enough to recognize that I have vulnerabilities of my own, to manage whatever anxieties that fact might elicit, and to feel some empathy for my sniffling. Maybe they are secure enough to know that a cold cannot derail everything good and true in our lives. Or maybe they were having too much fun with Papa to notice!

Mike took them to church in the morning, and later during Gabriel's nap Frances and I snuggled on the couch with our respective crafts. She took out her loom, and I made a Heart for Love, as Gabriel calls them. I first made these little hearts for the children on Valentine's Day, after finding inspiration here. A rudimentary crafter like myself relishes in this kind of small-scale project that results in something sweet, humble, and charming. I had made one for Frances on the first day of school, and everyone in the family took turns closing their eyes, solemnly clasping the heart of felt to his or her pumping-and-thumping heart of flesh, channeling all the love in the world into this new magic object. Then we ceremoniously put it in the front pocket of her backpack, because you never know when she might need a love boost during the school day.

Gabriel's school didn't start for another week, someone at Amazon dillydallied in sending his backpack, and somehow our accommodating, agreeable second child went off to his first day of school wearing a borrowed backpack emblazoned with the name Frances on it, containing neither talisman nor token. Oh, the indignity! Cheerful fellow that he is, this state of affairs bothered me far more than anyone. When his robot backpack finally did arrive, I knew I needed to make his heart immediately.

Watching me, Frances asked if she could make a pillow for Little Will, one of her stuffed animals, using the same blanket stitch. Amazing thing #1: she let me teach her, without a single feather ruffling. Amazing thing #2: she did it. All by herself. But a few short months ago, I don't think she would have had the patience and fortitude to see something like this through to the end.

But there it is, making life a little cozier in the menagerie at the foot of her bed. 

No one uttered a single protest when I retreated upstairs to read a novel in bed later that afternoon. I sank into the pillows and listened to Gabriel's funny little voice drifting through the open window as he and Mike planted kale seeds in the garden below. I so rarely get a chance to stand back (or lie back, as the case may be) and observe my growing family. My children are big, capable creatures who can easily withstand both a sick Mama and a tangled piece of thread. I didn't know that.

It's easy to fall into the rhythm of tending to dependent little ones, anticipating needs and becoming accustomed to the responsibility of being needed oneself. Ah, but they don't need me in the same way anymore. It's a good thing, I know, but part of me is lingering in another time that has very nearly passed, like a child at the playground who is not quite ready to leave.

Five more minutes, okay?

school of cake

I know I often wring my hands here about the difficulty of finding balance between work and family. It's a problem, being pulled in opposite directions. But this morning? This morning I got a break, because there was nowhere else in the world I would rather have been, nothing else I'd rather have been doing, and no one else I'd rather have been doing it with. Kitchen + cake-baking + Gabriel = blissful mothering.

Are there any pedagogical approaches to homeschooling that advocate cooking? All the time? I mean, what better way to explore science and math while nurturing a sense of imagination and wonder? First, we read the recipe together. After I peeled, Gabriel eagerly took to the job of carefully cutting the pears into many small pieces. He was wielding a knife! He was a dicer! Needless to say he was very pleased with his work.

Then came the most successful egg-cracking of his short culinary career, and witnessing the magical transformation of raw eggs into an airy, thick, pale yellow mountain via lots of high speed mixing. There was measuring, counting, smelling, touching. Sprinkling pear and chocolate that we'd cut into fairy-sized pieces onto the finished batter, then licking the impossibly delicious residue off our fingers. Oh, and did I mention the thrill of operating heavy kitchen machinery?

We luxuriated in a whole morning with nothing else on the agenda. Cooking with a small person, without the pressures of the clock or other children anxiously awaiting a turn (sorry, Frances!), is an activity that opens and opens and opens. It's beautiful. It's a place I love to be.

The only thing left to do, while our fragrant cake was cooling on the counter, was hang up the welcome sign for Heather, today's birthday girl (and a frequent commenter here, famous for her love of order, white sugar, and good clean living). She arrives at four, direct from a conference in DC. We cannot wait to see her and celebrate together!

welcome, rules

 

It's not surprising that the thoughtful list of rules that Frances' first grade classroom came up with, and that the two of us printed out to read together, is nestled in among scissors, homemade fly swatters, broken colored pencils and scrap paper on the kitchen table right now. I've been feeling a new rage for order lately, but my habitual disorder (which in optimistic times past I have called coziness) often gets the better of me.

The school year is underway, our varied schedules have become more rigid, and I had a tiny epiphany last week about structure, or rather, our insistence on living with a low level of it. When we don't know the rules--the expectations, the script, the what-will-come-next--we get majorly stressed out. And yet! I persist in my attachment to flexibility, spontaneity, and the ability to break rules when the situation calls for it. As in: you're right, who needs underwear anyway? Or: that cookie isn't the crumbly kind, I guess you could eat it on the couch just this once. Or: I know I said Saturdays were allowance day, but you're behaving so poorly right now I'm not sure. And I don't have any cash anyway. Maybe tomorrow?

Doesn't this inconsistency sound like a nightmare for a kid? To drive home the point: the only part of parenting that Mike and I totally kick butt at is bedtime. There have been modifications and adjustments over time but generally, the routine is always the same. There is no discussion or argument at the end of the day. I don't cave when it comes to requests to stay up later; those requests are infrequent anyway, because all parties know there is just no messing with bedtime.

The rest of the day, however, is up for grabs.

Until now! At least, I'm working on it. Area #1 of increased organization (and hopefully, peacefulness) is school lunches. I photocopied this chart from a favorite cookbook, Feeding the Whole Family. Frances and I brainstormed "growing foods," fruits, and vegetables that she would like to eat at school. We added those items to the Shopping List (another fine new innovation in our lives!), filled in the chart together, and hung it on a kitchen wall for easy reference.

Eating in general has been stressful these days. I knew when the children cheered at their last "Kid Dinner," explaining that they preferred eating separately because we don't give them a hard time about trying different foods, that we were in trouble. What could be more central, more hallowed and honored, than gathering around the family table to share a meal? How could my kids have negative feelings about dinner, one of life's most pleasurable and beautiful institutions? But they're picky, and unlike bedtime, we do not have hard and fast rules and routines around dinner. After I read this, I felt a new wave of inspiration.

I sat down with the kids two weeks ago and made a menu for the week. I know, many of you do this at home and have long understood how helpful it is. But I had never thought out the week's meals before. Like I said, spontaneity! Fun! I cook however the wind blows me, recipes be damned. This often means that by Thursday or Friday the picking are pathetically slim. I also get stressed out if the wind dies down to a gentle breeze and it's 5 o'clock and I have no idea what to make. So we're presently on week 2 of menu planning, and by far the best thing about it is that the kids partake in the decision making process. Before we even sit down, dinner has become less of a top down, my-parents-are-oppressing-me kind of affair.

We also came up with some rules for our family at dinner time the other night. It's all the usual stuff (you have to try one bite, only use kind words with each other, stay on our seats during dinner, etc) but articulating these guidelines together, and agreeing upon them, left me with a feeling of fresh optimism.

And finally, one more bit of order and intention in our lives. I bought Gabriel a bulletin board, just like the one his sister has in her room, and helped him choose pictures of the special people in his life. Mike and Gabriel hung it on the wall together, and we carefully placed the pictures and affixed them in place with push pins. Like all this rule talk and sign-hanging, I wanted to formalize and make visible the constellation of people who adore Gabriel. It is very sweet to see him stand motionless before his new bulletin board, gazing at the pictures.

Throughout all this ordering of family life, I had a nasty cold that developed into a sinus infection. We were also steadily walking towards September 11th, and I felt the day's approach palpably. Returning to the stories of loss and sacrifice, to the memories of that time - walking through the quiet streets of Philadelphia feeling lost, sitting on the steps of our church, watching people cry and pray - brought on bouts of a vulnerable, empty kind of sadness. In some strange way I must be trying to ward off not only tantrums and stress, but illness, accident, even widespread tragedy by wielding these freshly-made lists and charts. To you, sinus infection, I say we will always wash hands before dinner. And to you, terrorists hiding in the shadows? You'll have to cancel your plans for later in the week, because look what it says right here: we will have tofu and green beans with peanut sauce on Thursday night!

All a mother can do is try, right?