TODAY IS A NEW DAY

We’ve got a new place to add to our list of favorites, a new place to go and hide away from the world for just a little while.  It is wonderful, so very quiet and still, with birds and butterflies and chipmunks and turtles, too. 

I love it. 

It isn’t so far that we can’t sneak away for the afternoon and be back before dinner, but it’s far enough that it feels like another world entirely.  There are nice neighbors who drop off the best chocolate milk ever, and the water is cool and glassy, perfect for cutting into with a sharp dive. 

Almost as soon as we arrive the kinks work themselves out of my shoulders and I forget for a little while that my kids are forging ahead into their school lives next week and that my life is going to be, suddenly, much more empty.  I forget the dishes, the laundry, and the floors that need cleaning.  I forget that I am 33 with a family and dogs and a house. 

At camp, for a little while, I just am. 

I am the kid that sneaks down the dock for just one more swim before we leave.  I am the mom in the moment, watching her babies show off their latest swimming accomplishments.  I am the daughter having a beer with her mom at 3 in the afternoon.  I am the big-kid having a raft race with my son, and trying hard to win because he’s fast.  I sing the whole ride there and the entire way home.  I laugh, with my mouth and my eyes. 

Mom, you never have to buy me another present, ever, as long as you keep the camp.  Thank you!!!!!!

She isn’t a baby anymore.  She is smart and funny, capable already of collapsing into pre-teen giggles that leave her gasping for breath and turning bright red; a wickedly contagious brand of laughter that is hers alone. 

Don’t be fooled by photographs – this girl is nobody’s princess.  In their make-believe play she is the bad guy, or the hero, or the warrior, never the damsel in distress.  She is strong.

She knows who she is and what she is capable of, and she is not afraid to tell anyone that she can do something all by herself.  And boy, does she like a good challenge.  Just tell her she is too little to attempt something, just try convincing her that she can’t quite swim all the way around the pool yet and she will prove you wrong.  She looks fear in the face and carries on with determination and will.  She sees her older brother’s abilities as records to be beaten.  She can whoop all of us at quite a few board games.

But she is also soft.  She still needs those cuddly moments, still needs to know that she will always be our baby even when she is all grown up.  She is compassionate and empathetic, sweet at just the right times.  She knows her story and likes to hear it, to see the pictures that form a sketch of her beginnings.  And she knows where she is going: currently her life goals include being a mommy, an artist, and an animal trainer (because “I am am much better at teaching animals than you are, Mommy”).  And I have no doubt that she can do all of those things, and more, if she puts her mind to it.

Right now she is our Em, our sweet, funny, brilliant little-big girl.  She is, quite perfectly, four.

He lost his first tooth last week and he starts Kindergarten next week.

She turned four last week and begins Pre-K next week.

My heart is doing all sorts of weird things this summer…aching, swelling with joy and pride, and longing for a baby that I can’t have.  One minute I am entirely sad that their earliest childhood days are past us, that so soon they will be on to bigger adventures and huge chunks of their lives will be spent with people we really don’t know. Sometimes I am excited at the prospect of having ten hours per week that are really and truly my own, but then that excitement gets tempered by the thought of what I will do with that time.  Who the heck am I, without them?  I am eager to see my children learn and grow, so happy to know that they each have a keen appetite for new ideas and experiences.  And I’m not going to lie and say that it won’t be somewhat of a huge relief to have someone else be the entertainment committee for part of the day because for all of its inherent joys and benefits and greatness, stay-at-home parenthood is entirely exhausting.  But.   But I will miss them like crazy and the feeling of losing them, even for this little while, makes me feel dizzy.

And yes, I will say it out loud: I am having baby pangs, strong ones, pangs like I had when we were first trying to conceive.  My arms ache, baby showers stink again, and I know that if there was a baby available I could pull together a nursery, clothes, and everything else we need in a matter of hours.  I have a mental checklist of where everything is and in which order it should be put in place, according to importance and necessity.  Do I think that these pangs are part side-effect of my big kids going to school?  Yes, but only in part.  I have had an overwhelming feeling of someone being missing from our family for awhile now.  It’s a tough thing, this knowledge, especially when the other half of my marriage (my better half?) doesn’t agree.  So maybe we’re done, but my heart disagrees and I don’t know how to feel.

My mind is trying to get it all under control, trying to remember that this is the natural progression of events in a life, that babies grow up and go off to school and mothers go back to work.  And we don’t get everything we want.  Life carries on and on, whether we want to hold it still or not. 

But man, how I want to hold it still. 

They have called 911 several times, each time exclaiming with increased urgency that the babies are coming and they don’t know what to do.  They seem scared.  Come quickly! they yell, There isn’t much time! 

The youngest throws the toy phone to the floor in disgust when she gets the prerecorded message: Do you want to play?  She doesn’t want to play, she yells, she wants the amby-lens to come and save the baby kitties who are having trouble being born.  She calls again and is put on hold, I can hear the muzak while she impatiently taps her foot.  The oldest tells the mama stuffed-cat to push and take short little breaths.  After much loving guidance and stern support the kittens are born, the mama lives, and the family room pet-shop/veterinary hospital is returned to order.  All is well in the universe once again.

Oh, how our afternoon playtime has evolved!

I was about to post all about the horrific coffee date I had yesterday, in full detail with arrows and exclamation points to further express my point, but sometimes the delete button is my best friend.  What purpose would it serve to write it all out?  Would it help anyone if I spoke poorly of another mother’s parenting choices?  No.  The more important things to remember are those I learned from yesterday’s outing:

1.  Trust your gut.  If someone seems like a Big Sigh when I pass them in the hall three times a week, their drama like a cloud around their shoulders, they are probably not someone I am going to want to hang out with.  Giving people the benefit of the doubt is a worthwhile application of my optimism in most circumstances, but that sinking feeling in my gut should also be listened to.  Yesterday’s ugly scene could have been avoided if only I had trusted my gut about this particular person.

2.  Stick to anonymous places when having a first, and dubious, coffee date.  It’s not about saving face, it’s about respecting the people and business you have come to know and love, and understanding that they don’t need that sort of customer. 

3.  Memorize the phrase “I’ll have to go home and check my calendar”. 

4.  When things get ugly, I do have the right to leave or suggest that the other party leave.

5.  We all have ugly parenting moments.  We all have moments, perhaps even days, that we would like to rewrite.  If only we could go back and hand oursleves the edited script for that moment in time, so that we could be more patient, more in the moment, less grumpy and lousy.  If only we could go back and recognize that giving in to the child’s polite request for a cannoli would not break any profound law of the universe, but perhaps it might buy us an hour’s peace, an enjoyable cup of coffee, the respect of someone who has taken a chance on you.  I think the other mom would take yesterday back if she could, at least I hope she would.  I hope she would take back the yelling, the screaming, the bullying, the setting of her three year old on the stoop of a business located 15 feet from a busy street by herself, to wait until said mother had finished her cup of coffee.  If I could take yesterday back, rewrite the script and hand it to myself, I would not have gone to coffee at all.  Of if I had gone I would have spent less time trying to disarm the awkwardness of the situation and asked the mom if she needed help…with parenting, with her kids, with anything at all.  Because looking back at yesterday I see a woman floundering, grasping, clinging with her fingernails to an edge of what she saw as control but what the rest of the world perceived to be chaos and mean-spiritedness. 

6.  Children can be unruly, rude, bratty,  and out of control, but they are still kids and more often than not it is our reaction to their actions that sets the tone for our relationship in any given moment or even a lifetime.  React wisely.

7.  I have the best kids in the world and I am a good enough mom. 

8.  Above all else, be kind.

Just when you think you might not make it, just when you think that one more day off might kill you, just when you feel that one more “idle” day of making tents and snacks and lunch and breakfast and messes and doing laundry and prying lost crayons from the puppy’s mouth and calming down yet another tantrum and once again explaining the lack of favorite breakfast food despite rising protests and mopping up the muddy floor and catching another runny nose and hoping that one more cup of coffee might save you - just then, he says something like this:

“Mom, don’t you just love this wonderful life we have together?” 

His eyes gaze into yours and you know that you would gladly be the mother of a five year old and a three year old forever.  You understand in a flash that this is all too fleeting and you regret your loss of patience and you remember your joy.  You set down that worthless cup of coffee and you hug that boy, smarter at five than you are at 32, and you hug him with all of your might. 

And later, when they run excitedly into their classrooms on the first day back after a week-long vacation, you miss them both like crazy and you can’t wait for 11:20, when they will be back at your side with requests for tent making and crayon coloring and snacks and lunch.  The kitchen floor suddenly looks quite lovely with the patina left behind by muddy boots.  I would not trade this life for anything and it is, indeed, wonderful.

pThis is a test./p

After a year-long venture of house-hunting, house-selling, house-buying, house-moving, and finally settling in, there is much to say.  So much to say that there is no good place to start, not one finite point at which the story picks up and continues.  So instead of trying to play catch-up, I will dust off this keyboard and start with today.  Today I am sitting in my new-to-me kitchen in my 109 year old house, looking out the bank of windows that frame our kitchen’s banquette, watching the snow come down in big, puffy flakes that blanket the yard, the swingset, and the pool beyond. 

I am loving this new house.  It is old, and the wear shows in many places – 109 years builds up a good amount of wear!  There are dings in the trim and patches in the hardwood floors, and ancient windows that no longer open and shut.  But there is goodness, too, in the littlest of details here, there, and everywhere.  I appreciate the stamped door hinges, the rounded wall in the upstairs hall, the canning shelves in backmost basement room, the scrolled wood on the fireplace…so many things are good that I have gotten used to the things that aren’t so good.  This kitchen is cold, both in temperature and aesthetics, but it has a good deal of space and we can make do until we have the money to make it our own – I know that one day it will be the coziest spot in our home.  Until then, I have gotten used to putting on a sweatshirt when I want to linger here and it seems fitting that the chilliest room in our house is also where the teakettle is put to good and frequent use.  This is my favorite place to sit in the late afternoons; while the sun splashes across the table I knit and watch Harry and Emma play outside with our dogs. 

Speaking of dogs, while writing this I have had to get up at least ten times to rescue an odd shoe, slipper or glove from the jaws of the monster puppy, our newest addition to the family.  New because we lost our beloved Riley during the holidays to cancer, and our house just seemed wrong without two dogs.  So Ginger is here now and she is as spicy and naughty as the name suggests.  We adore her and find her impossible in equal turns; our plan is to weather this first year of her life as well as possible until she settles in and becomes the good dog we know she will be.  But Puppyhood!  Oh my, I had forgotten how tough you can be! 

Emma has a static cling problem.  Winters here are dry, dry, dry, and her hair is constantly crackling.  It is a static mess that clings to her face but she refuses to tie it back.  It drives me a little crazy, the way it is constantly both stuck to her face and aflight in a perfect halo of wildness around her head and I find myself trying to tuck it behind her ears lately, which she hates, in the same way that I hated it as a child when my mother tried to tuck my own static-challenged locks behind my ears.  I guess some things never change.  She has had a growth spurt in the last month and the jeans I just bought are already looking short.  Pre-school has brought about so many changes in her demeanor, a bloom of girl child that amazes us and a blight of girl attitude that makes us inwardly cringe, knowing that the teenage years will make this seem pale in comparison.  She has definitive ideas about fashion, spends hours a day on artwork, and will be glad to dance it out in the kitchen with you as long as you agree to play some of her self-professed favorite band: Weezer.  She talks with her hands with big, expressive gestures that make us giggle.  She is funny, wildly funny, and we simply cannot imagine what life would be like without her. 

I am recently the mother of a five year old, the fact of which nearly blows my mind.  I have moments when I can perfectly picture Harry as a young adult -  a certain glance, or the way he stands just so, makes me see him as he promises to be one day.  At other times he is very much the baby boy I met in an airport hallway, the one who sprung me, ready or not, into motherhood.  We registered him for kindergarten two weeks ago.  Kindergarten!  Holy cow, time flies by and they grow and suddenly we’re faced with the impending doom of homework.  I feel, quite acutely, the passing of time with him and I wonder if he feels it, too.  He is reading, not just sounding out words but knowing them at first sight and getting ahead of me in books.  He reads the newspaper headlines while we eat breakfast, the words on billboards while we drive, and he has an insatiable appetite for books, even sleeping with them tucked beneath his pillow.  He plows through life, setting the standard and leading the way for his sister to follow, a task that is both a blessing and a burden on his little shoulders.  He is a great, great boy, still moving ahead with that force that has always been his.

Brendan is in the basement working out.  (Hours have passed since I first started this post…the kids are in bed, or should be, and night has fallen outside of my kitchen windows.  It is still snowing, but softly now; it is no longer in such a hurry to accumulate.)  We had to wedge his univeral weight set into the first room on the basement and it just barely fit at all.  The treadmill lives in the kitchen now, a severe lack of headroom in the basement making running at treadmill height impossible for him.  He has been such a good sport about this.  He gave up a lot in this move, man-room wise, but he has weathered it in good spirits and we are trying to find ways to accomodate the things that don’t seem to fit.  People did not think about home gyms in 1901, I suppose.  When he is done working out we’ll watch LOST in high definition on his new flat screen, and suddenly it won’t seem so bad that he had to work out crammed into that basement. 

I have to end this post and insist that a certain five year old go to sleep now, despite his seeming need to stand at the window and watch the snow come down.  He is beyond excited with tomorrow’s potential for sledding in Crandall Park, but if he doesn’t get some sleep he’ll be too tired to climb back up the hill when his run is done.

I forgot to mention that we also celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary! Our anniversary was the same day as our closing for the new house, so it was a bit busy to say the least. We did our final walk thru in the morning, drove to Latham for the closing, and then arrived “home” to start cleaning. PErhaps it wasn’t the most romantic of celebrations, but I do think it’s pretty cool that we bought each other a new house for the ten year mark!