World of One Thousand Different Things

Untitled

2008-07-25T12:24:00.005-04:00

Late last night, while I was working on my Family Education column for today, I logged into my e-mail and found out some devastating news. Vicki Forman, who I work with at Literary Mama, lost her son Evan yesterday to a sudden complication from the G-tube surgery he underwent years ago. I know some of you are fans of Vicki's work, and if you've read any of her columns you'll know that she is an incredible writer and person and that her love and dedication to Evan always shone through in the poetry, soul, and sheer craft of her writing. Literary Mama will post the news on the site at some point, and open up comments for condolences. Please stop by when you get a chance.

Mirror, mirror

2008-07-24T07:55:00.001-04:00

On Thursday last week I bought T. a new swimsuit. I hadn't intended to buy her one--she has three already, two of them were gifts. But we were in the evil mega store to buy some last-minute supplies for our beach trip. There, on a rack, was a cute skirted swimsuit with printed red cherries on it--perfect for T. and her strawberry-blond complexion. And it was only $9.99! She didn't even have to try it on--it was a 3T and I knew just by eye-balling it that it would fit. Sure enough, back at home she tried it on, turning this way and that way in front of the mirror. It was made for her, of course. "I look BEAUTIFUL!" she said, "Mama, don't I look cute?" (Except of course, with the way T. pronounces things it came out "I look Boo-ful" and "don't I look coot".)

"You sure do," I told her, thinking about how this was just the beginning of the long relationship T. will have with herself, her mirror, and her body image.

Fast-forward to two days later: I found myself in Sears to buy some replacement beach towels for the pair of towels Scott and I have had for TWELVE years and I saw a sign for a swimsuit sale. I have a swimsuit I love, but I've had it for almost three years now, and it's starting to show its wear a bit. Since I was alone, I decided to seize the moment and shop around for a new suit, because I have learned to never, ever go swimsuit-shopping with a small child. They either point out your flaws with brutal honesty, or distract you from noticing your own flaws by misbehaving, thus resulting in your buying a swimsuit that morphs your body into a lumpy horror as soon as you put it on at home.

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To read more, click here...

Monday postcard

2008-07-21T08:12:00.007-04:00

I just couldn't get it together enough on Saturday to post Pursuits...but it's quiet in the beach house this morning, and I put up my Family Education post and have a few extra moments of wireless time to load some pictures--Saturday and Sunday pursuits, if you will, on a Monday morning!

It's lovely here--it rained on Saturday afternoon/evening, but we went out to the beach anyway and swam with the rain pelting down on us! L. thought it was thrilling; T. wasn't so sure. Yesterday and today the weather has been perfect and this morning the sea looks flat and shiny and I can't wait to get down there. We spent most of yesterday afternoon sitting in chairs ankle-deep in the foamy waves, digging for sand crabs while L. created an elaborate sand crab habitat for them in a bucket (we were strictly a catch and release program, never fear).

At the end of the day we sleep four-to-a-room, all of us warm and sun-soaked, T., with her arm circled around my neck, L., sleeping on the fold-out couch, with his ever-present Playmobil guards standing at attention, and his stack of Macaulay books at arm's length.

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The family that paints together...

2008-07-18T12:36:00.008-04:00

The dining room is done!

There are piles of things all over the house--boxes of groceries, margarita mix, beach toys, kids toys, piles of sheets and towels, suitcases, pool noodles, kites, all awaiting loading into the car tomorrow morning for our week away.

Somehow the kids and I still found time to make salt bagels, too (the recipe is up on Family Education today), and gobbled them down slathered with sticky strawberry jam.

And if you have a kid heading off to kindergarten or back to school soon, check out this post.

All the stress we've been feeling came to a head earlier this week and Scott and I realized that in our busy tag-teaming schedules and our daily damage control and the never-ending worries that cycle around and around us like some crouching, restless animal, that we haven't been making time for each other. On Wednesday night we turned the living room lights off and listened to some old The Shadow records, just like we used to do in graduate school. On Thursday we painted the dining room while the kids played on the computer. We listened to Billy Bragg and talked and painted and joked, and it was good to just have that space together, that piece of golden time around us, like warm sunshine.

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Here's the room! In the end I nixed all those colors I mentioned before and chose a paint most unglamorously called Taupe 4. But it's a Laura Ashley Home color, like the Vintage Blue we painted the kitchen. I think it came out beautifully--the paint color stands out nicely next to all the white trim.

I'll still be blogging for Family Education most of next week, so stop in there and say "hi!"

Mundane house post and odds and ends

2008-07-15T14:13:00.005-04:00

These are the dog days of summer, indeed. I'm finished with summer school, and L. has only the rest of this week, and all of next, before he returns to school and the challenges of third grade. We have tons to do this week and next to get ready--and next week we're spending at the beach, for a family reunion!

This week I/we have to:

--write letters to L.'s new teacher and any new school staff, introducing him and explaining some of his learning styles/quirks/talents.

--work on our book of social stories for L. This summer has been really challenging, in upsetting and frustrating ways, and a trip to the museum yesterday only confirmed for us that we really need to work on some things--namely, social rules and skills.

--I'm trying to write ahead some of the posts for the Family Education site for next week, or at least outline a few, so I have less to do when I'm there.

--Work on two syllabi for next semester (my semester starts in the middle of August).

--Complete prepping and painting our dining room! We finished the guest room a few weeks ago, and Scott is giving the dubious honor (burden?) of picking the dining room paint colors to me (probably because I droned on too long about how the guest room color he picked was just like the previous color on the walls, thus making it look like it hadn't been painted at all).

I like these:

The top left is fragrant coriander, the one next to it sauteed mushroom, and the bottom right (and the walls in the picture next to it) pony tail. I'm not sure about painting the walls something named after a cooked food, and my favorite is the fragrant coriander. Our kitchen walls are vintage blue, so the look would be similar to the picture.

We removed our old stove hood--it was disgusting. We had thought the previous owners were just lazy in never replacing it, but as it turned out they probably never tried to replace it because it took THE WHOLE DAY to do so, despite the cheery claim on the box:

Scott rigged an impressive support system of boards and odds and ends to get the thing in place so he could hammer and drill and manipulate the hood over the duct. This was an improvement over my spending an hour hunched over the top of the stove propping the hood up with my head while Scott tried to line up screws.

I may not post again until after we get back from the beach, although I might post pursuits from there if the internet access is easy. I'll be writing for the Family Education Network every day, and I have a number of back-to-school posts planned, and one tomorrow about some shocking parenting I witnessed at the museum.

Saturday pursuits

2008-07-12T18:50:00.009-04:00

Untitled

2008-07-11T17:05:00.001-04:00

Poor T.'s in bed with a nasty migraine episode. We saw this one coming, but it kept on coming anyway and hit as soon as we got to the pool at 4:00 today. She wanted to swim so badly, poor girl. We had play-dates at our house for both kids earlier in the afternoon, and T. played with the sibling of a new friend of L.'s and had a great time. And tomorrow the little girl across the street is having her 2nd birthday party, and I was so afraid the migraine would hit tomorrow and she'd have to miss it; so the timing is good, if you can call it that.

Tomorrow is a new day, all the ills of this week washed away, hopefully, by the thunderstorm we're supposed to have later tonight, and a brand new day, filled with only good things.

Carpe diem

2008-07-10T19:19:00.002-04:00

I think I need someone to take me out to the museum for an afternoon, and buy ME a snow cone or two.

This has been a really hard week--difficult with a capital "D". I miss the safety and privacy of my paper diaries, where I could pour my heart out between its pages and feel purged. Blogs just don't lend that type of cathartic experience, alas.

I miss my flesh and blood friends, and my family.

I'm tired of teaching and, alas, a tad tired of writing these days.

Is that wrong?

***********

A few weeks ago I found out that a wonderful music therapy program was starting classes in our area. A friend of ours recommended it, and when I looked into music therapy in general, it seemed so promising. L. has such a talent and knack for music, and it calms him and refocuses him in wonderful ways. It seemed like the perfect thing to try--music lessons coupled with therapy, what could be better? All summer we've been spinning our wheels again, caught in a rut. If last summer was the Summer of the Meltdown, this summer has been the Summer of the Recluse. Mornings have been unbearable for S., afternoons unbearable for me. I've been feeling like we've let L. down; that we should be pushing him to work on these issues, so that he doesn't turn even more into himself and become a total recluse by the time he's ten.

I invested a lot in the Voices Together class. Two weeks ago I exchanged lengthy e-mails with the coordinator, and got L. a spot in the class. Then Scott and I spent days discussing (well, arguing) about whether or not we could afford the music classes in the first place and, of course, as is prone to happen, the discussions spiraled into a lively and somewhat tangential analysis of other issues that then took us some time to sort out. Then on the day of the first class two weeks ago, L. flat-out refused to go and a terrific meltdown ensued. Then came more e-mail exchanges between me and the coordinator. On Thursday last week L. still didn't want to go. The came Round II of the tangential discussions between Scott and myself re: money and how we were spending it. Finally, fast-forward to today. With some trepidation I casually mentioned the Voices Together class to L at about 2:00 this afternoon.

How about if we try it out? I asked him, calmly.

Ok, he said, tinkering with his Playmobil knights.

Ok?

Sure!

And so we went, my heart leaping at the possibilities. Never mind if through the whole class L. chewed on his thumb and slumped in his chair, and refused to participate or look at anyone. I sat there so thrilled by how the therapists were combining music lessons with therapy L. could use, matching emotions with the rhythm of drums and chanting, and piano and voice lessons. The head teacher even played "Here Comes the Sun" so passionately that I almost felt tears spring to my eyes. I started imagining what my Thursdays would look like from then on out, as music classes would begin to unlock the doors and solve all our problems. It would be The Answer to Everything.

My euphoria was shot down, of course, by L. who couldn't wait to run to me at the end of class so he could hiss in my ear and tell me, in no uncertain terms, how much he hated it.

He never wants to go back. Ever.

Why? I asked him.

I HATE groups, he told me. I HATE people looking at me. I HATE organized music.

When you're a parent you have to be the big person in the room--this is an unfortunate reality of parenting. So while the little, tired, and disappointed person inside of me wanted to scream and rage about how L. didn't want to be in the music group, the big person I had to be told me to let it go. The little person and the big person fought a lengthy and valiant battle the whole way back home, and the whole time I made dinner. Somewhere between when I folded the last tortilla over the beans and when I stirred the goopy No Pudge brownie batter into the pan, the big person won the battle and the little person retired to her corner, to lick her wounds.

After dinner the kids and I ate half a pan of No Pudge brownies while listening to Abbey Road.

Sometimes, I think, you just have to live in the moment.

The price of sanity: $6

2008-07-09T07:39:00.007-04:00

We all know that MasterCard ad where they sum up the values of various things or events and then conclude that the intangible total is infinitely more priceless than each tallied part. Well, I felt like that yesterday, after forking out $4.00 for two snow cones, and $2.00 for parking and some preposterous amount for gas, I'm sure, so I could take the two housebound/tired/fussy/grouchy and bouncing-off-the-walls children to our local science museum while Scott headed off for a much-needed tennis match. On the way to the front doors of the museum, L. and T. spied a colorful snow cone cart, with gleeful kids hauling away huge cups of colored ice. Nothing turns the tide on damp spirits than a cup of ice enjoyed under the shade of a tree, with the promise of the cool museum just behind you, through the glass doors. The kids sat on a low wall, scooping ice and crunching it and, now and again, someone would walk in or out of the museum and send a blast of cool air our way.

I used to really love summer until we moved south. Summer is tough around here. The weather has been so hot and oppressive lately that really the only outdoor thing you can do with small children is take them to the pool. But on a day like yesterday, when the sky hung heavily and even the mosquitoes seemed to have difficulty buzzing through the thick atmosphere, even the pool didn't seem quite so appealing. The kids obviously needed some outlet--that fact was painfully clear the minute I walked in the front door from work because it was one of Those Afternoons--you know the kind, where you have to fight the urge to turn around and leave again because clearly the kids have lost their minds.

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To read more click here...and feel free to leave your comments there. All registration gliches have been worked out, as far as I know. Plus you get a cool Family Education newsletter in your in-box each week--what's not to like?

Number twelve

2008-07-07T15:05:00.002-04:00

...and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.

--Pablo Neruda, Love

**********

I wrote a much less lyrical anniversary post here...

Eight

2008-07-06T12:46:00.006-04:00

L.'s party was yesterday, his birthday today. Even though yesterday was a festive day, a chance to celebrate a birthday with all the birthday trappings, I didn't feel the impact of it until today, July 6th, the day of his actual birth eight years ago. He woke me up this morning, as he has for days now, running into our room and standing by my bedside.

Aren't you going to tell me Happy Birthday? He asked.

And I did, a few times over, pulling him close--that wriggly, all-arms-and-legs new eight-year old boy of mine.

When I look over our photo album from those early days, the first few weeks of his life, I feel a hard lump in my throat and a tightening in my chest: pride mixed with love mixed with nostalgia mixed with joy. I see Scott in the photos, excited like a young child at Christmas, and there's me too, a new and still young mom, and my mother, there in the hospital that day to see L.'s birth, and my father, his face ear-to-ear pride as he held L., his first grandson. I see the pride on my in-laws' faces, the sparkle in their eyes, the joy that radiated from everyone and which still shines from the pictures, pouring out of the album when I open its pages, like a sweet smell trapped and then released into the air again.

It's amazing to me that eight is here. Some of my most vivid memories come from when I was eight myself, and I marvel at the thought of this unleashing of consciousness in my own son, who remembers already much more than I ever did at his age. I think of the trepidation with which he entered the world, pulled forth late, and with no fluid left, against the odds, Apgar scores so low the nurses told me later they were worried, so very worried.

I think we all live our birth stories, in a way--a prophecy that follows us, shadowy and mysterious, etched into our psyches. Maybe L. didn't want to be born, let me be, he might have whispered into the dark of my womb, I'm happy here, leave me alone.

But he was pulled forth anyway, and swarmed over, suctioned, wrapped up, and sent down to the cold, strange world of the NICU, where he lay, sucking his fingers, and wondering about it all.

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L. at eight is all about Playmobil and ancient Rome, and the mysterious technical beautiful worlds in David Macaulay's books and the new microscope my parents gave him, and even an air hockey game and a new aviator jacket and a remote-controlled helicopter. He lines up his Playmobil guards at night along his bedside table, to watch over him. Last night, reading Macaulay's Building Big at story time, I stopped and puzzled over the word "dirigibles" completely stumped suddenly by its meaning, and with no photo to place it into context.

It's an airship, Mama! L. told me, thumping me on the arm.

It is? I asked, incredulous that he would know this word.

But he did. I looked it up later in his little silver pocket dictionary, while he slept, his plastic men watching over him, dreaming perhaps of giant air-filled ships, and towering structures of steel and glass, and a world that often defies order and symmetry, but instead is messy and strange and often frightening. I dreamed of him, too, my little big boy, suddenly eight, wrapped up in our love forever; a love which shouldn't keep him moored to us but which will, I hope, set him loose into the world, to explore, and wonder, and always celebrate this life.

Happy birthday L., we love you.

Saturday pursuits

2008-07-05T16:16:00.011-04:00

Burned

2008-07-03T09:05:00.002-04:00

If I was sorely let down by my students' response to the visual history exercise we did the other day, they made up for it yesterday in class. Unfortunately, student K. wasn't there to benefit from it, but his friends told me they had laid into him the night before about his loose remarks re: Rosa Parks and his own murky past (remember that I teach at an historically black college).

We talked about how little history means to most young people today, and they agreed that too many students are raised and educated to think that all of history does not concern them; that they can pick and choose the parts of history they wish to know about the most, and discard the other parts as irrelevant. One of my students angrily raised the point that she felt that many young black Americans just aren't learning about their own history--about the triumphs and victories, not just the well-traveled and tragic past of discrimination and violence. They also all agreed that Black History Month just wasn't enough; that in many schools (I was shocked to learn this) certain Black History Month events are made optional to the students, and that many white students choose not to attend. They proceeded to pull out many anecdotes which they all laughed over, but I just couldn't find them funny. I can't believe the stories I heard--stories of clueless teachers, racist students, poor curriculum choices. I just feel sad and disillusioned, really, to think about how many inequalities still exist, and about how so many young black students are forced to just laugh these appalling experiences off, because they feel there is nothing to be done about them.

And this is why I get so angry constantly over the conservative emphasis on foreign policy and oil and the war. Our country is slowly eroding away at the foundations, and has been for years. There is so much to fix still, so many young lives squandered--people who perhaps could stand up one day and make a difference, turn it all around for good.

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I'm feeling pretty burned out, really. It's a tough time of the summer--too many emotion-laden anniversaries. I wrote about one on Family Education today, and I think clearly my sensibilities are just a little raw and exposed this week.

From the somebody pinch me files...

2008-07-01T08:51:00.004-04:00

I'm sharing my office this summer session with a large, brown roach. I hate him.

The first day I spied him I was typing away merrily on my computer and I kept thinking I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I'd stop typing and the movement would stop. I'd start typing again and the movement would begin again. Finally I looked down and saw something run across the desk and drop down onto the floor.

I looked for that guy for a solid thirty minutes, overturning books and folders but he was nowhere to be found. Every morning I catch sight of him somewhere, but he's a crafty fellow. He's driven me out of my computer/desk corner and over into my colleague's desk area. She's away at the beach, lucky colleague.

Some morning I fully expect to walk in and find him sitting at my desk, antennae waving, as he types away at MY computer keyboard, pouring out his roachy thoughts.

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If last summer session I had a group of motivated, sharp, over-achievers as students (with a Scary Guy and Scary Girl thrown in to keep me on my toes) this semester I have only 5 students, an interesting assortment of real characters who, in their special ways, keep me on my toes as well.

Yesterday in class I brought in about ten historical photos, all from events that should have been easily recognizable by most people. Never mind that none of my students could recognize the famous Tiananmen Square photo, or even the toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue, but I had included in there that famous picture of Rosa Parks' first bus ride on the day Montgomery, Alabama's public transportation system was legally integrated. All my students knew who Rosa Parks was, of course, (thank god) but for some reason, instead of prompting an in-depth discussion of civil rights and history, as I had hoped, one student zeroed in on the fact that Parks broke the law when she dared to sit in the whites-only section of the bus.

Look at Rosa Parks, he said defiantly. She broke the law and then got all rich and famous as a result.

He looked around, hoping for some rallying cries of support from his fellow students. Not getting any, he continued on:

I mean, look at ME, all I did was TAKE some things and I end up with a police record and can't get a job.

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Come visit me over at Family Education and feel free to leave comments. It's been lonely there these past few days, and I have a post up today about L.'s upcoming 8th birthday.

Saturday pursuits (a day late)

2008-06-29T17:01:00.016-04:00

The angle

2008-06-27T09:04:00.004-04:00

Setting: front hallway at 8:25 a.m. Scott and I are saying goodbye, as I head off to work. L. comes down the stairs, looking thoughtful.

What's the angle of death? He asks, abruptly.

Scott and I look at each other.

The what?

The angle of death--what is it?

I think to myself: My god--IS there an angle of death? What is it?

I'm not sure what you mean, Scott tells him.

L. disappears upstairs and returns with a Far Side comic.

Oh--the ANGEL of death, I say. Papa will explain that to you, it's time for me to go. And I leave poor Scott to somehow deal with that one.

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Thanks all of you for your kind words this week regarding our transportation back into the abyss of sleep-deprivation, and I'm sorry I haven't been around to your blogs much this week. Things aren't much better, but there are glimmers of hope. Last night L. didn't wake us up, although he confessed he crept into our room to "look at us". But I was awakened at 3:00 by periodic shouts from L.'s room, every 3-5 minutes. I lay there, as parents do when they awaken to sounds over a baby monitor--you lie there thinking, should I go in? Will he fall back asleep? But then, after forty solid minutes of shouts with long pauses in between that made me think he was back asleep again, I got up to check. He was wide awake reading a book with the lights blazing.

Why are you shouting? I asked him.

It turned out that every time a scary thought popped into his head he would shout, to get it out of there again.

Oh L., I said. You don't have to do that.

When I was little I used to lie awake sometimes paralyzed by a frightening image. But I devised my own visualization technique to chase the images away. I would imagine a white horse running across my mind, galloping hooves taking all the bad thoughts away with a swish of its white tail and mane. I told L. about this a long time ago, but I think he just can't separate himself enough from the scary thoughts to superimpose another image on top of them. If he were able to control his mind this way, then many of the challenges he faces wouldn't be there. I'll try and work on this with him, to give him some better techniques to deal with these anxieties.

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We're off for a quick weekend away at the beach. I think we all need it. I will try and put up Saturday Pursuits tomorrow, if I can get wireless in the motel room. If not, I will post Sunday and back-date to Saturday.

Islands

2008-06-25T09:59:00.004-04:00

Hold onto your seats everyone, this will be another woeful post about being tired and sleep-deprived--at least in part. Last night, between 1:00 and 3:30 a.m., both kids managed--in their own special ways--to send me back into the days of interrupted sleep; those painful nights where all you are allowed to do is doze, fitfully, between bouts of waking up and tending to needs. And if I ever entertained any nostalgic fleeting ideas of a third baby, then that visit back into time last night was enough to quash them all.

Back when we were new parents to both kids, we discovered quickly that next to being sleep-deprived, the worst situation was being sleep-deprived AND being around people who were not. They never managed to give us the support and sympathy we needed. When you're a parent and you're sleep-deprived, the best thing for you (apart from sleeping) is to be in a room with other parents who are also equally sleep-deprived, so you can rant and rave about it to your heart's content with people who know exactly what you are going through. This is why, even now, when I hear from childless people about how tired THEY are, because they've burned the midnight oil to meet a deadline, or slept poorly because of a cold, I have almost zero sympathy for them. As my husband once pointed out early on, when you have children you just can't make up sleep deficits. They build and build until you can't even see straight, let alone think straight. Childless people can always recoup sleep deficits on a weekend, or with one solid good night's sleep.

...

Can you bear another post about sleep-deprivation? I'm too tired to generate a new one over here, but if you click here you can read the rest of this one at you know where...

Random Monday morning thoughts on sleeplessness

2008-06-23T09:53:00.004-04:00

Today on the Family Education site I have a post up about parenting books and sleep, and the lessons we learned about it all through dealing with our own children's sleep issues--well, mainly in dealing with L.'s sleep issues. We cycle through periods of good sleep and bad sleep with L. Now, alas, we're in a period of poor sleep. I'm not sure if it is entirely due to our trip to D.C., because we were in a rough patch just before going, too, but I'm sure the trip had something to do with it. These days L. goes to sleep fairly simply, with maybe only one or two "pop-ups" for reassurances. But then he wakens again, sometimes just as we go to bed, and always these days in the middle of the night--2:00 am or 3:00 am. Last night it was 3:00 am. He rushed into our room and I was jolted awake suddenly (my Mama night-time radar is still fully charged) to find him next to me.

Mama, I can't find my Playmobil catalog, he told me, prodding me with a finger.

It's next to your bed, I said, mustering up all my strength to sound reassuring and kind (I'm not sure I succeeded).

L. disappeared and then returned 30 seconds later.

It's NOT there.

It IS.

It's NOOOOOOOOOOT!

IT IS!

Anyway, it WAS there, and L. disappeared into his room with all lights blazing to peruse the pages of it until, I hope, he fell asleep again. He's been doing this every night now for a week, and it's wearing thin.

I have always carried baggage around with me about how I deal with sleep issues. I know that there are few parents out there who can muster up calm and patient reasurances at 2:00 am when their child insists on standing by their bedside and carrying on a conversation about a missing toy catalog. But I also know that L. clearly needs something then, in the middle-of-the-night, and that he's looking for us to provide it and that it's not only the catalog he wants. But I'm equally at a loss as to what I can do for him then, when I need to sleep, and he does, too, and inviting him into our bed just isn't an option. When my children were very little it was easier to offer comfort: nursing, or scooping them into bed to settle against us. I still remember what it was like to wake a little, and pull T. close, so she could nurse for a few moments, her little hand opening and closing against my wrist, and I felt so good, even at 2:00 am, to be able to offer her comfort like that. When L. was small I could reach out and pull him into bed between us, where he would kick and twitch until he fell asleep again, his body heavy and still.

Now I don't know what to do, except to grouchily send L. back to his room, to his catalogs and books, or to tuck him in again some nights, kissing him quickly while wanting only to go back to my own sleep, my own dreams, my own rest.

Saturday pursuits

2008-06-21T20:29:00.011-04:00

Music to dream by

2008-06-19T20:56:00.002-04:00

Today the pool was taken over for two hours by a group of campers--7 and 8 year-old kids and their chaperones, maybe 10 of them in all. They swam and played water games and, when it was break time, threw themselves down on their towels in the sun like happy puppy dogs vying for the warm spots on the floor. I was struck by their interactions, and by how they sought each other out so much, and by how the social world begins to blossom for kids at that age, poised to take off in a small handful of years as they hurl themselves into puberty.

All of that was in sharp contrast to L., who is so content these days to keep to himself. He plays alone at the pool--games that are challenging and entertaining to watch but they are all so internalized. He's truly in his own special world, hurling his body off the side of the pool over and over again to dive and retrieve torpedoes and swim rings; talking to himself as he narrates complicated scenarios. Every now and then a child will intervene--retrieving the torpedo first, or attempting to enter in on the game and L. shrugs them off, closes them out, and they swim away.

I never know whether it's wrong to be a little sad about this.

*************

When L. was a baby we'd walk him to sleep with Enya's Shepherd Moons playing on repeat mode over and over again from my old Sony boom box. When L. would finally give it up to sleep we'd ease him onto our bed and lie next to him, scarcely daring to breathe lest the spell be broken and L. would awaken, fussy and the whole pantomine would begin all over again. Tonight we put the CD in for the first time in awhile. It's Thursday night opera night on the classical station L. loves and opera night sometimes frightens him (I never knew operas could be so bloody). So most Thursdays we dig out old soothing CDs and set that same boom box on repeat. I'll lie in bed with him and listen while he flips and wriggles, and sometimes punctuates the silence with observations or questions.

Tonight, listening to Enya, I was transported back in time to our little Amherst Street apartment. I remembered exactly which moves I used to make to each song, and what it felt like to hold L.'s sweet weight in my arms, his head bobbing up and down, his eyelids fluttering, until his head would sink into my shoulder.

I told L. the story of that well-worn CD and his sleep.

I guess that's why I love it so much, he said.

You've always loved to sleep to that CD.

You know, Mama?

What?

I'm going to listen to music when I sleep for the REST of my life.

You are?

Yes. Even when I'm married, I'm going to buy a pair of wireless headphones and fall asleep at night listening to music.

And that very image: of my L. as a grown-up man, lying in the dark next to someone who will love and understand him, this complicated, brilliant, and sometimes impossible boy of ours, made me really want to cry.

Summer legacies

2008-06-19T17:41:00.006-04:00

We are two and a half weeks into summer with the kids, and L. has about five and a half weeks left before school starts up again at the end of July. Our Family Summer Camp is in full swing, now. This past weekend we took our first "field trip" to D.C., and the kids were able to see museums, the U.S. Capitol building (note: if you stop in front of the Capitol in your minivan because your father-in-law wants to point out a certain flagpole above the building, it will take approximately 10 seconds before an entourage of U.S. Capitol police pull up behind you, lights flashing, ready to question you as possible happy-family-in-disguise terrorist suspects), the Smithsonian castle, and the famous Mall. They rode the metro and L., armed with the metro map, was once again given the job as chief navigator. They made new friends, stayed up late, and truly experienced D.C. as only very young people can do: magic, beauty, grit and all.

To read more, click here...

A mundane post about house things, Part II

2008-06-18T14:30:00.008-04:00

Last summer I wrote up a post about the progress we were making on the house front. Last summer was our first summer in this house, and we spent most of it removing massive amounts of greenish, flowery wallpaper from the kitchen walls, and hideous pink plaid wallpaper from the 1/2 bath. We also painted, of course, and did some general decorating and repair work. This summer, Scott has some Big Plans that I'm trying to talk him out of (with your help).

He wants to refinish the wood floors. Himself.

We have great wood floors throughout the whole house, but almost every room has a mysterious (or not so mysterious) stain like this one:

Nice, right?

After consulting with my hairdresser C., who possesses an infinite amount of knowledge about all things house, I'm thinking the floor refinishing project may be too much to tackle. I think it involves us actually leaving the house, and lots of horrible wood floor dust coating our lungs and throat, and the pervasive smell of chemicals seeping into every room. I would love some been there done that advice from anyone who has undertaken this themselves. Is it doable? A nightmare? A disaster-in-the-making?

We have one more bathroom with wallpaper, and it looks like this:

I don't mind it much, but I think since we removed so much wallpaper last summer that we might as well finish the last of it and live in a paper-free house.

I have been browsing through magazines and fantasizing about putting a small, 35-gallon goldfish pond here:

A mini version of the wonderful pond/oasis my dad has built in his backyard.

And I'm planning on uncovering the rest of this wonderful rock wall...

which would be right in front of the dreamed-about pond area.

What do you think?

Mixed

2008-06-16T20:03:00.003-04:00

My father-in-law and his partner live in a charming row house on Capitol Hill, only two blocks from the metro and a few blocks from the heart of the city. More importantly, as far as the kids are concerned, they live a short block from a playground--an unusual one with immense rope structures for climbing. On Sunday evening, during that witching hour of time between when rest time had ended for the kids, but dinner wasn't ready yet, I took the tired but punchy kids down to the playground, and settled myself on a bench to watch them play. I'm used to the neat and sterile suburban playgrounds of our town, and this one was a welcome change. It fed the eyes, in a way, with the pleasing geometric shapes and interesting angles, and the equally interesting and diverse group of kids who tumbled about the slides and the ropes.

By and by a young man (he couldn't have been more than 18) wandered over the hill from under the bridge where the bigger boys spend hours skate boarding, following a tiny boy, who was weaving in and out in that delightful way small new walkers have. The young man had tattoos all up and down his arms and, incongruously, a Winnie the Pooh diaper bag slung over his shoulder. He grinned at me grinning at the adorable boy, his little man.

How old is he? I asked him.

Thirteen months, he replied, flashing white teeth and sparkling eyes, filled with paternal pride.

Happy Father's Day, I told him.

The young man beamed, the words so pleasing to him. He straightened up all the taller, and shifted the bag to his back again.

I thought about all the fatherless students I see in my classes. I hope that young man holds onto that pride, that joy, that love and care, through thick and thin, good times and disappointing ones, too. I hope he always remembers what it means to be a dad, and that being one matters more than he might even know at that moment, there on the playground.

***************

All weekend long I mulled over the pros and cons of city-living versus suburban living. My feelings ran the gamut from envy (what wouldn't I give for a blue row house with black shutters and look--that family gets to live there!) to criticism (yes, but you have to spend over one million dollars to live in a place like that and who wants a mortgage THAT size). There's something captivating about city life, and about the steady hum and throb of noise that never seems to end. But then tonight, walking Willa through our neighborhood, I filled my eyes with the sky, and the thick clumps of trees. You just can't fill your eyes with the sky that way in the city. Sometimes, this weekend, the sky would surprise me. I'd look away from all the buildings and people and cars and catch sight of it and be surprised to see it was still there, after all.

Tonight I saw a red-winged hawk and heard an owl hoot, from somewhere in the distance. If I listened very closely I could hear the tight spring of the diving board coming from the pool in the woods. It was good to be home again, but I felt a hollow longing inside, for the throb of people and the clean angles of the city I left so many years ago.

************

L. slept terribly all weekend. The first night he didn't fall asleep until close to midnight and then woke again an hour later. He was convinced that the smiling ladies in the portrait hanging over the guest room bed had somehow transformed into skeletons, grinning at him from the dark.

The dresser knobs were silver eyes.

The carved end table looked like a hunching monster.

The lights were too low. Then they were weird, like shadows.

He couldn't listen to his classical music (T. was asleep in the bed, L. on an air mattress next to us) so in the end, in desperation, I gave him my iPod and he fell asleep at 3:00 am to Yael Naim and Lily Allen.

*************

I have a funny feeling in my stomach, L. told us after dinner.

Does it hurt? I asked him.

No, it feels empty, like a half-good, half-bad feeling.

We puzzled over this for a few minutes.

I mean, I'm HAPPY to be back, but I also feel bad about it, too.

I think you have mixed feelings, Scott told him.

L. looked relieved.

I'm glad it's called something, he said. I was worried I was sick.

Saturday pursuits

2008-06-14T14:04:00.007-04:00

Ten good Friday things

2008-06-13T08:32:00.000-04:00

1. Giving my students their final exam today.

2. Discovering that Scary Guy isn't so scary, after all; Just misunderstood. Maybe. (He was, alas, replaced by Scary Girl--but that's too sordid a tale to tell.)

3. Watching The Great Debaters with my students on Wednesday and listening to them cheer loudly at the end.

4. Scooping T. into our bed at 4:00 am and feeling her body curl up next to mine.

5. Waking up at 7:00 to discover the dogs have slept in (we're dog-sitting my in-laws' beagle/rooster).

6. Being caught up on work. At least at this very moment.

7. Looking forward to a weekend in the heart of D.C. (note to D.C. blogging friends: e-mail me if you'll be around on Sunday. We'll be pretty busy, but we're planning some museum time.)

8. Getting to spend Sunday with my dad.

9. Anticipating four whole days off with the kids until Summer Session II starts.

10. Getting the chance to read this book cover-to-cover and to FINALLY finish this one.