The Sun!

the guys clowning around with friend Drew


The sun came out for a couple of days. it was amazing...we had all forgotten.

The paradoxes

My boy, he's on the cusp - not in the astrological sense (he's a clear Taurus on that front)- but between little boy and big boy. He still loves Disney shows, but wants badly to watch Star Wars and Ben 10. He's sweet and cuddly while alternatively flexing his muscles and wrestling like a crazy man. He loves to be around people, then needs his quiet time to recharge. He plays sweetly with his sissy then bops her on the head for no reason. He cries when he talks about getting too big, then counts the days until his next birthday. He'll be 5 in 6 days.

The paradoxes of life are never as clear again as when you are this young. And never as unforgiving, either. But the truth is there are no absolutes. I learn this more each moment, day, year. I think with confusion at my own convictions and contradicting choices- that public school is an amazing privilege of this country, while I send my children to private school; that I recycle like a madwoman while driving an SUV. Even my life is a paradox of NOT making choices-- should I work or should I be with my kids? (as long as I don't have to decide, I'll keep doing both).

But the truth, which we teach to our kids but not to ourselves, is that the beauty of life is in the contradictions. It allows us to try it on for size, grow into another size, or change the color that compliments us best. Instead of fighting against them, we should embrace those choices which challenge us. If I want Kade to do that, shouldnt I set that example?

a note to my girl

December 2008
Sweetness, you just turned 2-1/2 and you are FUNNY. While there are moments when your emotions overtake your silliness (I actually carried you out of the house today with just your tights on, since you refused to get dressed)—mostly, you make us laugh. You love to dress up in princess clothes “I princess!” (“who is mommy?” I ask —“Mommy the queen!” you say).

You love music and dancing. “I want Rock and roll All night, I like that one, the Scooby doo one.” You talk non stop, even when you are in your crib. The other day I heard you talking to the “bad guys”: “bad guys! Bad guys! Let go of Dumbo! Dumbo- run Dumbo! Let go of Dumbo, Bad Guys!” You like to eat and eat—“I wanna snack” “I want vitamins, mama juice, I want gummy” (gum). You like to chew gum while sucking on your “B”—your binky, which I cannot get away from you!

You wake in the morning and yell “Mom! I’m awake mom! I wanna get out. I wanna come out there. Mom!”. Kade runs into your room first, and you two kiss & hug. It couldn’t be sweeter. Mostly you like each other and you watch out for each other. When he is sad, you want to know if he’s okay, you say “Don’t cry!”. When you are frustrated or not getting what you want, you say “I’m crying, mom. I ‘m so sad.”, you pull your bottom lip down, show your bottom teeth and let out a cry...or many.

Bathtime at night is always an adventure. You like to antagonize your brother, you’ll climb on top of his back and say GIDDYUP! Daddy tries to peel you apart but you guys laugh and laugh. Today you were in the bath and you two were fighting, I could hear you from downstairs. Then—you started laughing. I knew something was up. We went to check it out and brother said “we were just putting sissy’s B in our bum bums!” (this story will kill you when you are older).

We mostly try not to laugh. Tonight you were wearing your princess dress, glass slippers, sunglasses, crown and were happy as could be. You are mostly happy as can be, and we adore you, Ry girl.
“Climb Daddy Mountain”
“I do it by myself”
“No! I don’t like that!”
“I wanna wear a beautiful dress”
"I a girl!"

A place of Hope

Obama won last week. I can hardly write it without tearing up. its taken me so long to process what this means while trying to access how it feels...and though the word is larger than life, somehow Hope doesn't encompass it all.

It means we still live in a country where anything really can happen. Where I really can tell both my son AND my daughter that they can be whatever they want to be-- even President. It means we are more alike than we thought. It means most of us still care, still believe in the promise that this country made to us, and still feel pride when we see the American flag. It means that though I live in the middle of a metropolitan city, I can still feel so much joy at that moment that I hug and cry with every stranger I see.

We were here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qL-CgzQ0FY

How do you capture that kind of joy again? That one man, this new President, has brought that in people even if just for a moment in time -- well that is worth my vote a thousand times over.

Godspeed, President Obama. The world is yours, and we are there to be on your team. Don't stop believing, indeed!

A note to K

You are growing so fast, my sweet boy. You face life head on with so much enthusiasm, but that means you will be ready to leave me sooner than I might like. When I first sent you to PK you were only 3 years old. You stood by the window crying as I left for the first 6 weeks. Your stubbornness and your pure love of me kept you standing there for weeks longer than I might have expected. Once I finally convinced you I was coming back, you began to wave. You would stand in your spot in the basement school and look up at me with those big blue trusting eyes and wave like crazy, blowing me kisses. And finally, a tap on your heart to show me you loved me, never taking your eyes off of me. I always had to walk away first. Towards the end of the year, you would sometimes wander off before me. But not always.
This year you give me a quick kiss, hug your sister, and run off. I look down at the window sometimes when I leave but you are never there. You are busy, as you should be, and I already miss your 3-year-old self. But I will always feel that tap on my heart when I part from you.

A little easier

School started again, and, its a little easier this year. Kade is ready to go each day-- especially if he can be the "first one there" (everything is a competition). He is learning so quickly, its only week 3 and he has come home having absorbed the four seasons, how to write his name and some spanish (!). Ryen has to go one day by herself and one day with me, and she's not fan of the parting. But she does okay. Its me who doesnt like it. I see it all before me, the little steps away leading to the big steps away and then, they're gone. I'm not hoping in any case for them to be here at 25, but instead for them to stay 4 and 2 forever.

But its a little easier for me too. Its easier because they are happy to go, and they are learning and growing, and I know I would be holding them back if they didn't go. And that's my job, after all. I only wish my job would get a little easier.

These Are The Days

"You stayed around your children as long as you could, inhaling the ambient gold shavings of their childhood, and at the last minute you tried to see them off into life and hoped that the little piece of time you'd given them was enough to prevent them from one day feeling lonely and afraid and hopeless. You wouldn't know the outcome for a long time."
-- Meg Wolitzer, The Ten Year Nap

Each day, I feel it slipping away. My babies are toddlers and preschoolers already-- little still, but getting old enough to not always want to hold my hand. But their ecstatic joy at my mere presence is, I hope, enough for me to treasure this journey for the long term and not always pine for These Days. But sometimes I think These are The Days-- the unselfconscious laughter, faithful trust, wholehearted affection, total honesty and unabashed question asking-- these are the days I was made to be a mama.

This, I am good at. This, my kids revel and blossom in.
And what tomorrow brings...for that I can only hope. We will stay around as long as we can-- inhaling and inhaling and inhaling.