world's lamest bike gang

Today was perfect outside. Just perfect. Between the weather and having breakfast this morning with three inspiring and smart and funny friends, I moved through my day with a lighter body and spirit than I have in a very long time.

This thing has been happening over the past few months. I seem to embarrass my oldest child multiple times a day, in ways that boggle my apparently limited mind. I feel like I'm playing out a script that was written for us way, way, way back, an inevitable back-and-forth that leaves us both irritated and absolutely astounded by the perspective of the other.

The other day I heard myself say, "It can't be embarrassing that I exist. It can't be embarrassing to have a mother. Everyone in the world has a mother."

This was met with muttering and gazing towards the sky through her newly shorn, elegant hair. Then I shot her a look I employ frequently these days that translates as: oh no, oh no no no none of that please. Then she said - Sorry. But Mama, you just don't understand.

See what I mean? I obviously don't. But then today, in my outrageously high spirits, Frances, Gabriel and I went on a bike ride. Beatrice was in the bike seat, freshly stickered with all the odds and ends we've been finding as we pack up the house. I felt sort of like the Queen of the World, in the bright breezy sunshine, flanked by my people.

We should have a bike gang, I said. Let's be the Heritage bike gang. We rule this neighborhood!

Frances looked over her left shoulder at me. Mama, she calmly explained, I do not want to be in a bike gang with a mom who rides around with a toddler on the back of her bike. That is not cool at all.

Oh.

If I am going to be in a bike gang, I want it to be with tough teenagers who ride dirt bikes. No, motor bikes. And they actually go places, instead of riding around the same neighborhood all the time.

I had to laugh. I see your point, I told her. That does sound like a much cooler bike gang.

She made absolutely perfect sense. I understood. Hallelujah! What a great day.

where I've been

I haven't blogged in a very long time. I've missed this space, and the palpable sense of connection and  common experience that comes with it. I find myself oversharing on Facebook, which really isn't comparable to this - though it did provide a forum to share some of the adorable photos from our visit in Lancaster with my mom and gloriously pregnant sister and her family. I want everyone to see her and her belly. Magnificent, I tell you!

The house is half packed up, though it doesn't really look that way. It looks more like a big mess. Besides the normal logistical stress of preparing for a big sabbatical adventure, Mike has been struggling with some persistent health issues that had all of us worried and uncertain about the future. Over the past two days, we've been able to rule out more serious diagnoses and he finally seems to be recovering. His doctors concur. Gabriel told me this morning he knew Papa was better because he has been playing more games with him. I noticed that too. We are all finally relaxing into the knowledge that he is going to be okay.

But wow. Every time I felt tempted to post over the past few weeks, I couldn't bring myself to do it. Worries about health and whether or not international travel was going to be feasible, let alone wise, have been before my eyes and heart all the time. It seemed wrong to share here about anything else more superficial without acknowledging that sobering reality.

A little while ago some friends took me out for a lovely evening, a goodbye-for-now night out, and I found myself sitting down, looking around at the seven or eight open, dear faces, and telling them  tearfully about our worries. I explained I just had to tell them that right away, so as not to feel false or trapped in superficialities all night. Of course they got it. After that, we had a great time. 

So - inhale, exhale - that's what's been going on. Now that things are looking very positive and hopeful, I can safely acknowledge all of it without causing you undue worry - and move on to other things.

Well. Maybe I don't really have much else to share. Just one little observation: the humble summertime beauty on offer in my backyard has proved a great solace during this time of worry.  All the in between moments have quietly nurtured me - waiting on a very slow, distractible toddler to wend her way to the car while watching squirrels play, weeding for a moment before heading into the house and marveling at the abundant herbs, pausing before walking somewhere to watch the mama robin fly to her big babies in the nest outside our front door. 

It's probably time they fledged, but I want them to stay a bit longer. Take your time, little robins.

The most delightful and restorative sight in our yard? Goldfinches perched delicately on coneflowers, sunflowers, and lupine, plucking out the seeds and gobbling them down with captivating precision. Last summer I tried photographing them and they looked shockingly almost grotesque - bright yellow miniature dinosaurs. Much better to encounter them in motion.

All will be well. I always knew it, but now I know it with a more peaceful heart. Maybe, just maybe, I will make it back to post here again before we move out of our house in ten short days. Thank you, readers, for sticking around through a long quiet spell. I missed you.

gabriel's song

We've got nursery rhyme fever over here. Again. Beatrice has all four of us reading, all the time, from The Real Mother Goose and the book I mentioned a little while ago, Over the Hills and Far Away, and probably more than either, a perennial family favorite called Ride a Purple Pelican. And when we aren't reading and reciting, Beatrice freestyles her own nonsense nursery rhymes. Or her brother makes them up for her. Like on our walk to school this morning:

John John
Pteranodon
Painted his nails at the beauty salon
Eating a lot of squishy bon bons
John John
Pteranodon.

Also, a collaborative effort:

Tick tock tick tock
Goes the clock
Put a banana
in your sock.

That cracks them up every time. A banana in your sock?? Wild!

Gabriel has composed his own melody for one of the little poems from Ride a Purple Pelican. Beatrice can recite the words with him (in fact, we all can):

Late one night in Kalamazoo
The baboons had a barbecue
The kudus flew a green balloon
The poodles yodeled to the moon.

A monkey strummed a blue guitar
A donkey caught a falling star
A camel danced with a kangaroo,
late one night in Kalamazoo.

So on our walk, he was belting out this song, including noises for a guitar, and some doo doo doos at the end of each verse. He was dancing around the stroller, playing an air guitar. Really, really getting into it.

Mama, he explained. I'm playing an electric guitar when I sing this song.
And some girls in pink bras and underwear are behind me on stage singing the doo doo doo part. (Wow.)
I'm wearing a silver cape and I'm all sweaty. (Gabriel as James Brown? Elvis?)
And this is a dance I'm doing. (Swiveling hips, shaking his long hair around).

I am completely captivated and help him imagine his show-stopping Vegas-ready rock number. He continues:

And everyone in the audience is clapping their hands like this (over their heads in time to the beat) and holding up signs, and all the girls want to marry me, and they play my song on the radio all the time, and I get really rich. And then I can buy The Mansion*!! Won't that be awesome?

Oh yes, Gabriel. When you collaborate with Jack Prelutsky and record nursery rhyme-based raging rock songs that go platinum, that will be so awesome. And then, as now, I will be delighted by your spectacular you-ness, and all the ways you shine your light.



*The Mansion in question: he plans for all of us, along with his and Frances's and Beatrice's spouses and children, to live together in a mansion when they are all grown up. There will be a bowling alley and movie theatre and basketball courts and, it turns out, a stage for his shows - intimate affairs for family and friends. Because obviously, even in The Mansion, all his fans would never fit.

toddler visions

After weeks of telling myself to let go of any hopes of potty training within the next few weeks - given the major transitions under way and all the Big Girl Developments of late (moving from crib to bed and weaning) it seemed best to let the kid relax in her diapers for awhile - I decided that actually, never mind, we are in fact doing it. I am mostly at home, the weather is lovely, the big kids are still in school, and Beatrice and I can spend the mornings naked in the backyard. Well, she can. And I can follow her around like a crazy person with a little potty. 

This is my third round of trying to get a stubborn toddler out of diapers and I never know what the heck I'm doing. I always feel as if I am pretending to lead on this one. I talk a good game, but I think they can tell that there is a void where authority and assurance should be. It's smoke and mirrors, kid, and we both know your radar is fine tuned. Your mother is absolutely clueless when it comes to this particular growing up challenge and you know it, and that's why you look at me as if I am utterly absurd every time I pull out that ugly plastic thing.

All that said, bribery seems to work pretty well with Beatrice. Better than with my older children...or maybe I'm just more comfortable employing it. In any case, today I told her that when she learned to use the potty and didn't need diapers any more we would have a big party to celebrate. Then she told me about the party, and it was fantastic. All the themes that occupy her little mind were out front and center: family roles, her ambivalence about and attraction to the natural world, babies, possessions, control, and sweets. I transcribed a bit:

M: Where is the party going to be?

B: At the restaurant. And there will be swings! A blue swing. And a purple swing that I can go. Gabriel can go on the blue swing and I can go on the purple swing! And Didi can go on a big girl swing.

M: What else will happen?

B: Everybody will come. It’s a different playground there. Yeah. And Sada will be there. And Caleb and Milena. And LOTS of babies. Tobias will be there. And Sarah. She will. All different kinds of babies. And Miss Danielle will be there, and Jolie, and Baby Yvette will be there too! Miss Danielle is going to bring the stroller. She will.

M: Tell me more about what we’ll do.

B: It will be a cool place called a Different Kind of Jug Bay. They're gonna make popcorn and chocolate cupcakes and brownies and we ... we get to eat them!! And the brownies have sugar in them. But we will have the 'puter there to play Hello Goodbye. And you can play Love Love Me Do. Mama - remember raspberry kombucha?

M: Should we have that at the party?

B: Yeah. And we will bring our toys! And there's gonna be any bugs there and any bugs at the playground. No bugs and no ants.

M: How about butterflies?

B: No. They’re not allowed to come.

M: And did you say we’re going hiking?

B: No we're not. We're going to the cafe. And Papa is not allowed on the playground. Only big girls. 

M: What about Mama? Am I allowed?

B: No you're not.

Wish me luck.

xo