Spring Hopes Eternal

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools, singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,

Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

- Sara Teasdale

Today I broke ground on our long-planned butterfly garden.  The girls are out with their visiting grandparents.  The spouse is off working. For about forty whole incredible minutes, it's been just me, the dog, and the dirt.

"Set out wildflower seeds" has been on my phone's memo app for about two weeks. Snow, sun, sun, snow (perfect) and then surprise! head lice, business emergency, blizzard, work, school break, work, kid with a cough (not so perfect).  From deep in the Mommy-trenches, I kept missing the weather windows for my patient wildflowers.

Today I dutifully worked for several hours . . . post office . . . groceries . . . specialty lightbulbs . . . then ZOOM raced home from WalMart with one eye on the gathering clouds and a new hand-tiller jingling in the back of the car. I shoved my fresh pedicure into a pair of raggedy snowboots, whipped the wildflower seeds off their garage shelf, and frantically chawed up the island in the middle of our driveway with the store tags still flapping on the tiller.

Did it! Booyah! The seeds are all laid down, in the nick of time for a little snow that's due tonight!

I am so pleased. And I wish I had better words, or more time, to describe the soft smell of fresh-turned dirt, mingled with the plopping all around of a sassy spitty snow, offset by distant thunder-rumbles in the background. Because those are some of the best smells and sounds in the world.

I'm an earth sign, truer than true. It's been a long, dry, chilly season around here, but spring is on the way.  Again, forever and always.

Seattle. Because.

"But why? And why Seattle?"

"Because I've wanted to see it for a while, and this is the week I have."

"But it's cold."

"And?"

"It's winter. What will you do there?"

"The same things that the 600,000 people who live there do, I expect."

"Why not Florida? I'll fly down with the kids and we could meet up with my parents."

"Because that is not a vacation."

"Fine."

"Okay then."

[Pause.]

"So how about this. You take a few days for yourself, then I'll get your parents to watch the kids and I'll join you in Seattle for the weekend."

[ARGH.]

"Dear husband. I love you madly. I will be overjoyed to spend a romantic weekend getaway any time you want. But this is my week alone."

"Well, that's just it. Why would you want to spend all that time alone?"

[ ". . . for this queen you think you own . . . "]

"Because 51 weeks a year, I am on call 24/7. And I need a few days alone. All by myself. A-LONE."

"I don't get it." DH is irritably puzzled.

"You don't have to. Just say you will watch the girls for five days."

"Fine. Fine, I'll make it work."

Irritably puzzled as DH may be, every single grownup woman to whom I've spoken is head-over-heels about the idea:

"Seattle, my gosh, you'll have such a great time."

"Seattle? I have a friend who visited Seattle. Let me call her and find out all the best things to do!"

"Nobody's going with you at all?" (A wistful look, this from a mom with two clinging to her knees.)

"Any particular reason?" asks my dental hygienist.

"Because," I mumble around a wad of cotton, "with little kids you get so defined by everyone around you, that I'm not even sure I remember how to read a bus schedule or find my way out of the airport. I figure that once a year I have to practice. Or I'll just forget how to do it."

She's nodding away while she polishes a molar. "Totally."

As if that is not enough, contemplate these further allures from the Mom's Week Off Travel Brochure:

• A cave-dark hotel room, for sleeping without one ear a-prick for nightmare calls, potty attacks, or telltale burbling sound of the dog about to throw up again on the carpet.
• Hot showers of unlimited length.
• Free continental breakfast. Which is cooked by somebody else. Which you can take back to your room and eat while using the free wi-fi. Which doesn't cut out when the kids suck up all the bandwidth watching yet another episode of Odd Squad.  
• Using said free wi-fi write a whitepaper on whatever social or political issue matters to you, or (more likely) just to surf specimen plants on Dave's Garden for as long as you damn well please.
• And, oh! also using it to groom your "Yes, dear, I won't play that music in the house when the children are around" playlists on Spotify. Booyah.
• Earbudding said playlists on the way to the ice rink, by bus, every day. Peoplewatching! And Skating! Every! Day! Which may mean losing a pesky five pounds, another thing that's just too much trouble IRL.
• Eating a hot meal in a restaurant. I don't mean one that is served hot, whereupon somebody immediately has to be escorted to the potty. I mean a meal where every bite is hot, and I can have that second martini, because Uber is driving.
• Figuring out Uber, on which I am several years behind.

Okay, I realize these things could mostly take place in any suburban Super-8. I'm excited to see Seattle, too, don't get me wrong. Coffee everywhere, seafood everywhere, the original Starbucks, Pike's Place Market, miles of hilly urban hiking (at sea level!), the Impressionism exhibit at the art museum, water taxis, and all that. The whale-watching is out of season, but that's the only drawback.

And when I come home, after walking fast through the airport, feeling all competent and fancy with a single small bag and a spare hand for my coffee, I'll be all done being a hunter for this year.  I probably won't even mind when somebody wipes their nose on my shoulder during a hello-hug.

December 26-31, Mom's Week Off. Because.

P.S. - Hotel and airfare to Seattle in winter? Stupid cheap.

So Byooo-tiful

One of the little princesses has emerged as a sleep-until-noon princess, while the other is a pre-dawn-perky princess. I've gotten to see - albeit reluctantly - some very nice sunrises this fall.

And, of course, there are wonderful moments to compensate for the early reveille:

(the) Pitter pat patty patty pat pat pitty pat pat patty PAT! (of little feet)

"MAWMM!!!!" (high volume stage whisper)

"Mmf, eh?"

"You HAFF tah come wight NOW!"

Patty patty pat pat patty pat / flumpf flumph flumpf (that's me, not exactly pittypatting at 5:10 a.m.)

I am not fast enough. Never am. "Come and SEE!" she urges from the landing.

Down the stairs and patty-pat through the kitchen to the porch door we go. I blurrily note that the furnace has kicked off again.

"See! See da MOON!" she is literally hopping up and down with excitement, barefoot in the 65-degree house. Her little round toddler belly, now in its last months as she passes the 3-year mark, is pooching out her favorite pink sleepers with the donuts-and-sprinkles printed all over them.

Her hair looks like a dandelion in full blow, and her eyes are luminous as she splays both chubby starfish hands on the window and exhales, creating a little vapor-spot of delight.

I sit down next to her on the cold cold floor and she snuggles into my lap with great satisfaction. She is a sturdy warm pile of wiggles as her fluff-hair tickles my cheek.  We watch the early-morning crescent moon, flanked by Venus and Jupiter, sailing high and clean in the pale cerulean sky.

"Iss sooo byooo-tiful," she whispers, eyes on her perfect moon.

"Iss so beautiful," I whisper, eyes on my perfect daughter.

Teaching the Child to Pray

Driving home from ice skating this winter -- ah, ice skating, the subject of many blog notes on my phone, some of which may someday be turned into blog entries -- we pulled in behind an ambulance. Its rollers weren't on, but it was lit inside. And, in this tiny mobile theatre hurtling down the freeway, someone was lying on a stretcher and talking to the EMT.


We passed in a blink.  I thought He'en wouldn't notice, but she did. She said, "There is someone who is sick in there. I wish I could make it better." (Every time I am tempted to think she is a complete sociopath, she surprises me with a burst of empathy.)


So we talked about what she could do. And we talked about how, sometimes, there is nothing you can do. Well, we concluded, there is always one thing we can do. Always, we can pray.


Now, as previously established in this blog, my theology is shaky and my faith often equally so, although admittedly less so since the arrival of my offspring.


But I have undertaken to raise these children. There may come a time in their lives when they have nothing to hold onto except faith. Faith in something, faith in anything.  Despite my own misgivings in the religion area, I feel that I should give them some avenue for hope in case they need it down the line. Some, um, cross-denominational faith training.


So, shamelessly relying on my memory of the Cliff Notes on To Kill a Mockingbird, I told He'en that she could pray. She could pray for courage for the sick person, and pray for strength for the sick person and their family, and pray for wisdom for all the people helping the sick person so that they would know the best thing to do.


I explained that you don't just pray for things you want, because God doesn't work that way, but that you can pray for the ability to get through it all, on your own behalf or anyone else's, because God definitely works that way.


I tried hard to put it all in five-year-old language.  Then, feeling that I'd done the best I could, I shut up for a while and concentrated on driving while He'en chewed on my little homily.


She was very quiet for a while, and then,


"I blew him some kisses," she announced with calm assurance.


I nodded, my eyes welling up with Mom-tears, and told her that, yes, I was sure that would help. And I made a little prayer of my own, then, that her faith in something, anything, would always be exactly that strong.

Be Still, and Listen

The long winter nights this month have invited me to lie quietly in the morning, listening to the dog snore, watching the room gradually lighten . . . and grinding my molars in anticipation of Dragon Girl's first YOWL of the day.

She doesn't hold back, this second child of mine.  Dragon Girl is not the super-sleeper that her sister was at this age. She has a lot to get done in this lifetime, and nobody is going to slow her down, including the Mama. Accordingly, she wakes with the dawn, and usually a bit pre-dawn for good measure. If I am lolling about in bed and not getting a head start in the Good Morning race, that first wail generates a huge flack pattern on the Mom Radar. It also jolts my adrenaline production in unpleasant ways.

So here I am, waking up cranky and/or way too early, scheming and dreaming about getting that child to sleep longer, when I ran into these Midday Mussar notes from our rabbi.

Of course, I can't make it to the Midday Mussar meditations, because . . . right . . . kids. But I think I might really need the Midday Mussar meditations, because . . . oh, right . . . kids. So -- blessings on our clergy's technophilia -- I scrape the notes when I get a chance. They are just notes, but that's good, because then my mind can go a-wandering between the notes while I wipe the highchair tray and find the Roku remote yet again.

Reb Jamie has written about grieving, but -- as his comments on duality observe -- the very same mediations are deeply applicable to all the BUSY! NOISY! NEW! LIFE! in this house. The Jewish appreciation of duality is just so spot-on:

Our sages teach that during sleep we go through a (1/60) fractal of death. Thus every morning present[s an] . . . opportunity to practice the rouse ourselves from “mourning to an ecstatic dance…that chavod might sing you out [of bed] and may not be silent [like death].” (Psalm 30) With the words of this daily psalm, a melody, a tear, a cupped hand, or the mental image of a small cave, we can begin each day with a reminder to journey through the land of humility [chinah] to engage all life with chavod, beginning with your own.

-- Rabbi Benjamin "Jamie" Arnold

The "cupped hand" reference contemplates a discussion earlier in the same entry here.

Very little silence finds its way into my world of late. Stillness is not popular, either. And some days I am patently lacking in either humility or engagement. Some days it seems that everything around here is noisy, furry, drooly, squirmy, yelly, demanding, wanting, needing, messy, hungry, and/or some combination thereof, and that I am the one-woman service industry for all of it. Some days, I need to work really hard on being present in this parenting endeavor, and not just mentally checking out while I dice up yet another peanut butter sandwich.

Thus, when the factory whistle blows at 5:45 a.m. in the dead dark, I am trying to view that first baby cry as a new life that is "singing me out of bed." It helps. Sometimes it works. At the very least, it makes me feel guilty about being cranky and try hard to cheerfully greet the baby and do better for the rest of the day (my perfect synergy of humanistic Judaism and guilt-ridden Protestantism). 

Tonight, at my amazing adopted shul, Rabbi Jamie is leading a Winter Solstice service. Again, in his words:

The Service will feature simple melodies, rich silences, and subtle teaching to turn our hearts to the expansion of light that is coming, enabling us to align our inner cycles (of darkness and light) with the wondrous symmetry and balance of forces in nature -- sun, moon, earth, and soul.

A perfect way to enter the Winter break -- with Shabbat, and community.

 

 Shabbat Shalom

I won't go, of course, because . . . oh, right . . . kids. But I will try to honor the solstice by sleeping, waking, and celebrating on this day and this night. And maybe with a little stillness here and there.

Halloween. Is Over.

BWAAA-HAHAHA it's OVER! We are DONE!

For the last three blankety-blank months, every day on the way to school, the carseat has chirped, "Mooom? How yong until Haw-o-ween?"

And for the last three months, every day, I would calculate the countdown. My number would be met by a big sigh. "But dat is sooo yong!"

Not long enough for me, I would think but not dare to say.

This year, we had several parties and several changes of costume. "We" were, variously, (1) a figure skater, (2) a Really Scary Dragon, (3) a Vam-Pie-Uh, (4) a Wicked Witch (twice). I was prepared for this, and unlike Halloween 2012, I totally softballed the costumes this year. Mostly I just dug in the dress-up bin and applied eyeliner in creative ways.

We had a requisite number of meltdowns and a predictable amount of candy rationing. He'en and I went 'round about a haunted house at one party. ("But it's NOT scawwwy! Reawwy!" she protested from her hands and knees as she peered under the partitions. "I don't care. Mommy gets migranes in those things," I announced. Thus, we did not attend.)

But the spookiest, the scariest, the most-anticipated, and the most parentally horrifying, was the Great Pre-K Class Party. I am a Co- Room Mother this year -- the background on that whole deal is quite another entry -- and in conjunction with the other Co- Room Mother we had organized four crafts and a godawful pile of candy. Multiple emails were sent about the party. The teacher said there would be a song, a story, crafts, and treats, in that order.

On the Big Day, DH dropped He'en at school in costume. She could have flown her own broom, she was so excited. Dragon Girl was sick, so I stayed home as long as possible to let her sleep a little. Then I heartlessly bundled her up in a sweater, stuffed some Kleenex in my pocket, strapped her into the front-pack, and got to the school at 10:40,  for the 10:30 party start. I figured they would just be settling down to the craft tables and the real help would be needed about that time.

Boy, did I figure wrong. As I walked in, about 15 parents were just getting up from their seats.

Yes, right, seats.

The "story and song" apparently had been a "Halloween Program" and, crappity CRAP, I had just missed it.

A red-faced, teary little witch appeared at my knee with a deeply trembling lower lip: "Mooom! You are YATE. You missed the WHOLE SONG."

*%%$@__#.

And *&^^ too.

The last-minute run to the thrift store, the triumphant acquisition of the Just Right striped tights, the careful application of eyeliner makeup this morning, and even permission to bring a broom to school, all blown away. Gone. Vaporized in one great Mom Failure for which I will never ever be forgiven. Did I learn nothing from last year's Hanukkah escapade?

We were saved from total disaster when another (better-organized) mother tuned into this exchange at just the right time. She had taken a video of the program and gave her phone to He'en for sharing. He'en and I twice watched the video. Then she still clearly had not forgiven me, but she was mollified enough to decorate a cookie and make a treat bag at the craft tables.

We both made it through the rest of the party but I left the school at lunchtime wrung out and awash in Momguilt.  I shamelessly signed up Helen for Extended Day on my way out the door, figuring that for our hefty tuition dollars the afterparty sugar crash could be somebody else's problem for a couple hours.

When I picked up Helen in the late afternoon, she was notably more cheerful. But on the way home,

"Mom? I had a sad day." Sniff sniff.

"Oh, honey, I am so sorry." GuiltguiltguiltguiltGUILT.

"Yah. Dake teased me."

...eh? "Jake teased you? Oh, I am sorry to hear that."

"Dake teased me, but 'den I told him iff he could be nice den he could sit wiff' us at yunch. So he was a yiddle nicer 'den."

"Well, good for you, that is good to hear, that he was nice."

"So den' I wasn' sad anymore," she concluded.

Hmmmm. I could not resist asking --

"And was that the bad thing that happened today?"

"Yep."

Craftily and carefully -- "And your day was good after that? Nothing else bad happened?"

"Nope!" She swung her feet with cheerful emphasis as she contentedly bit into a candy corn.

Off the hook. Yessss.

This morning, I tossed a kid-sized costume onto the bannister for transport down to the playroom. Then another. Then a third. And I realized that I had been chanting, with each toss, "Done. Done. DONE."  So yes. Done. DONE, I tell you, for another blissful blessed year.

I'm off to go raid her candy.

Striving for Sisterhood (Now a Trio)

This Matt Walsh Blog post -- note, the responsive comments outnumber the population of my hometown -- has me lately thinking about the sisterhood of motherhood.

First case in point:  I was crouching on the floor at Target, agonizing over whether I should buy Size 9 or Size 10 purple fuzzy snowboots, when a button nose peered down at me, topped by the tiniest pair of Clark Kent glasses I ever have seen.

"I'm reawwwy FAST," the owner of the glasses announced over the edge of the shopping cart wherein he was riding.

"I'll bet you are!" I automatically looked up with a grin.

"I'm faster than the Fox!" the little Clark Kent continued with great pride.

"Are you faster than all the superheroes?" I temporized, with a cautious glance at the Mama pushing the cart. Because you don't want to be thought creepy for having an extended discussion with somebody else's kid. Even if you are looking at fuzzy purple snowboots yourself at the time. And you don't know if superheroes are okay in somebody else's house, and so forth, and so on. But the Mama is grinning at her child as he continues.

"I'm faster than [mumble] and I run really good, and I have sheets with [mumble] on them but now we live with Grandma so I don't have my sheets all the time . . ."

The cart-pushing Mama interjected with, "Um, she doesn't need to know all that, honey -- "

While little Clark, who has taken a huge shine to me, is informing me that " -- I had to leave them at our house and we live with Grandma now because -- "

Whereupon the Mama got pretty "UHM!" with the kid and he subsided into the cart.

"Oh, they'll tell you everything about everything, won't they:? Mine's five, and she will tell you everything," I blathered, trying to set her at ease.

"Well, yes," she said flatly, "but you don't know me or anything about me."

I paused a second from my vantage point at her knees, still smiling up at her. "Well, I know you are a mother, and I am a mother, and that's enough to know."

Later, loading my purple fluffy snowboots into the car, I so wished that I had added, "And you're clearly doing a great job, if your terrific outgoing little kid is any indication!" Because I have a feeling she might have needed to hear it. So I was not, in Target, the sister I should have been. But, cart-pushing Mama, I am thinking of you and your cute little kid, and hoping that it all works out for you.

That said, and I am sure my own sister will agree, "sisterhood" does not always connote "solidarity."

Second case in point: I am driving through the Starbucks and staring absently from my car window into the outdoor seating area. A Mama is outside, enjoying her coffee. She has three (3) boys in tow: probably ages 2, 5, and 7 or thereabouts.

The boys are all dressed in darling little outfits with sweaters against the summer breeze. They are ranged around the table, swinging their feet and smiling while Mom drinks her coffee.  Charming. I glance back at the carseat, where my own offspring has stopped howling only because she is now happily pouring milk onto her seatbelt and watching the drops soak in.

Even more tooth-grittingly, the mama is tanned and toned, wearing a poppy-colored ribbed tank top and a breezy peasant skirt -- in white -- with a big floral print. Her long dark hair is effortlessly tamed in a messy French twist. She is wearing big hoop earrings and carrying some sort of painfully simple hobo bag that is painfully perfect with the whole ensemble.

I turn around to dig out my wallet -- reminding myself to just be grateful for the resources to buy this latte even though I will undoubtedly spill a bunch of it on myself and therefore I have no white breezy skirts in my personal future -- when I hear a wail from the Starbucks courtyard.

All three boys have popped off their chairs and are rampaging around the gated seating area.  Two of the three are in complete meltdown mode.  The smallest one is under the table, minus his sweater and a few other articles of clothing, drumming his heels and shouting, "I HATE my hat! I HATE my hat!" The whole Starbucks yard sounds like the aviary at the zoo. The Mama, clearly a pro, continues to sip her coffee. The mien that I had previously taken for "smug and haughty" now reads more like "zenlike resignation."

I don't want to wish her ill. We are, after all, sisters in the cause.  But I collected my Starbucks and drove off feeling just a little bit better about my own day.

Then there is the third case: Ourselves as Others See Us. I was wandering around Old Navy with both kids in tow (why? I really cannot say). We were having a good day. Dragon Girl was squirmy in the stroller, and He'en wanted the coloring table instead of the leggings selection, but I cannot fault either of them for that.

As we chased around looking for some new He'en pants, I caught the eye of a mother with two girls who were maybe 9, either twins or sisters close in age. I smiled at her and we smiled at me:

I grinned at the mother and asked cheerfully, "How old are your girls?"

"Oh, 9 and 10," she smiled. "They are only 15 months apart."

"Wow, that must be fun!" I said, as I bumbled my bags-kids-stroller-pilfered-crayons load into the dressing room behind her.

Thereupon followed the predictable two-kid dressing-room experience: chirpy discussions with He'en, the baby trying to crawl under the door, trying to hold Dragon Girl while buttoning Helen's pants for her, flicking dustbunnies off of everyone because of course we had all landed on the floor, and so forth. It was all basic Mom-stuff, and everybody was cheerful throughout (except maybe Dragon Girl, who rather fiercely wanted to investigate the loading bay and wasn't shy about expressing it).

Still smiling despite the light sweat, I got everybody out of the dressing room and pretty well lined-up for the checkout. I was feeling mighty smug that we had not only gotten pants, but that everyone had a good time at the store.

At the checkout, I got in line again between the nice mom with the two girls. They were loaded with cool neon sweaters and one had a jazzy pair of horn-rimmed glasses. "Looks like you found some great things!" I said.

"Well, we did, but you, now you sure look busy right now!" she smiled.

"Yes, well, it's the busy time," I smiled back, prying something shiny out of Helen's hand with a no, we're not buying that whispered aside, simultaneously shoving DG gently back into the stroller where another concerted escape attempt was in progress, and digging for my wallet with my third hand.

"It gets so much easier. I promise," she assured me. She just oozed warmth and empathetic concern. Like . . . oozing at the level that might have been appropriate if I'd been whacking one of my kids in the dressing room and she wanted to give me one more chance before calling Child Services.

So I gushed and smiled and thanked her, but I drove home checking the rear-view mirror for frown wrinkles. Her heart was totally in the right place. I give her full credit for proper sisterhood behavior. But . . . do I look that whacked? Or maybe I look like a good Mom who just needs Botox?

"If there is a single point," my own sister said as I discussed this post with her, "It's simply that we're all in this together. Every mother everywhere." And, yes, that's all I really had meant to say.