homemade time

goodbyes

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Mon, 20 May 2013 12:10:00 +0000

Gabriel is out of sorts. Maybe he's getting sick. Or maybe he has more sadness and anger inside him than he knows how to handle. (Most likely it's both). Little things uncharacteristically throw him for a loop; a minor bike crash this afternoon resulted in wailing, prolonged tears. He's in a kind of developmental stall out. I'm desperate for him to experience a confidence-boosting, joyful breakthrough in soccer, biking, reading - something. But everything seems hard and taxing. It's as if his feelings are sucking up all his extra energies that normally go towards mastering new things. I wish I could send him to a kid-version of a 19th century sanitarium: a verdant, peaceful place where nice nurses in starched whites would push him around in an enormous jogging stroller, feed him healthful and delicious food, and leave him alone while he plays with legos on a green lawn all morning.

I anticipated the losses that would come with the arrival of Beatrice for Gabriel. He lost his place as the baby of the family, he lost all the routines and rhythms of our daily family life, he lost his special place as Didi's one and only sibling. But I hadn't really considered the loss of preschool. Gabriel's cooperative nursery school is a caring, intimate community. He loves his friends; he loves many of their parents, too. The routines at school stayed blessedly consistent when his baby sister arrived. And now it's the last week of school, and he's so sad.

It wouldn't be so bad if he weren't anticipating the great Preschool Diaspora next year. I can think of eight different schools off the top of my head that his friends will be attending for kindergarten. Many families we know are moving this summer to the suburbs (land of better school districts). Last night at dinner Gabriel suggested we might consider moving back to Lancaster, where Gramma and so many friends live, since so many of his Annapolis friends are moving anyway.

Oh dear! All I can really do is attempt to build excitement around and connections in his new school community. That, and try to patiently wait out this time of quick temper and easy tears. I know this too shall pass for Gabriel, as the transitions soften and he slowly finds a new equilibrium. But while he walks this hard in-between stretch, how my heart hurts for him!

enjoy your body

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Sat, 11 May 2013 01:14:00 +0000

A couple of days ago I was sitting with Beatrice in my lap at the table. She watched her brother eat his lunch with great interest. Gabriel said, "It'll be nice when she's older." Why? I asked, expecting something along the lines of she'll be more interesting. But instead, he surprised me. "Because then she'll really be able to enjoy her body!"

Like how? Like eating good food, and walking and running, and climbing things, and reaching out for something she wants to hold and being able to do it.

Oh! Such a nice reminder: our bodies are wonders. Moving, stretching, tasting, smelling, seeing - such excellent everyday gifts, bodily pleasures that usually go unnoticed - until they become inaccessible. I am especially attuned to the miracle of a body that more or less works, just coming off a nasty stomach bug. Mothers should never have to get sick.

But today I feel much better! That virus was just getting started in me when I had the conversation with Gabriel about bodies, and all that Bea has to look forward to. I was feeling worn down and the day was gorgeous, so after lunch we went outside to watch birds and check on the garden. Gabriel found some acorns there that resembled tanks. So I sat on the deck while the baby snoozed on my chest, and watched the great acorn battle rage across the table.

Just one more way you can enjoy your body: war games. They seem much more benign when enacted with acorns, don't you think?

That afternoon of bird-watching and battling was, not surprisingly, made possible by the fact that we had absolutely nothing on the agenda. Thank you to Amelia, Becky, and Emily for their words of wisdom after the last post. To Tobie and Meg as well, via Facebook! I appreciate hearing your thoughts and insight - a lot.

lost in the woods

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Tue, 07 May 2013 02:09:00 +0000

In last week's New Yorker, the Talk of the Town section features a piece about Amanda Knox's forthcoming memoir, dwelling on her almost bizarrely naive and childlike approach to life as a student abroad in Italy. Frances and I are in the midst of reading Spiderweb for Two, which is the final book in the exquisite Melendy quartet by Elizabeth Enright. Somehow reading about Knox trying to order chocolate milky mochas in Italian cafes with a copy of Harry Potter under her arm against the backdrop of the Melendy children's independent adventures in the woods and farms around their rural home (circa 1941) has me all stirred up. The portrait of Knox was so disturbing familiar, and minus the whole getting-mixed-up-in-an-Italian-murder-trial part, so uniquely American. So very, very far from adulthood.

And I'm not sure why - maybe the media told me, in every story and radio interview I've heard about the effects of helicoptering on young people - but somehow I intuited that the kind of immaturity Amanda Knox represented was about overscheduling and overmanaging children. The Melendy kids - who are, I grant you, fictional - sometimes spend all day long alone, building dams in streams, watching moths, composing music. They put on performances for the neighborhood and in the summer they squander whole days getting lost in the woods. They come in at dinner and the adults ask them: What did you do today? The adults have no idea; they had no hand in the children's activities and pursuits.

The thing that Enright captures so beautifully is the alert, quiet, interior yet observant state that children enter sometimes, most especially when they are outside and alone, watching crickets or clouds, or listening to water move. It's a porous, open, extraordinary feeling of being suspended, still and watching. Do you remember those moments? In the backyard, at camp, sitting on a stoop at night? I cannot explain exactly why, but I think to become a real adult a person needs to spend a lot of time just being - with absolutely nothing to do. Kids need long, open afternoons. They need solitude. It builds character!

Well. I was trying to talk about some of this tonight with a friend when it occurred to me that really, all this crotchety talk about Kids Today and how things were better Way Back When is probably really just about my own anxiety with our kids, and how relatively little they do extracurricular-wise. I think I'm trying to convince myself it's okay. So many of their peers are playing multiple sports, dancing, gymnastic-ing, playing instruments, and taking the test for their black belts in karate. Some of them seem to have activities every day after school, and all kinds of skills to show for their efforts.

My kids couldn't wield a lacrosse stick to save their lives. They can just barely swim. Nearly every time we need to mobilize to get to a structured activity, they protest. What they want to do after school is putter, paste, build. Hang face-down on a swing in the backyard. The last thing they want to do is follow instructions! We do manage a few things: Gabriel is playing soccer and Frances is playing the piano. Sometimes we make it to swim class. On paper it sounds just fine but sometimes I do wonder if they will feel less confident, less accomplished than their peers someday. Maybe they already do! Am I setting them up, all while convincing myself that without lots of open free time they'll turn in scandalous students abroad...?

Thoughts on this one? How important is unstructured, unsupervised time? Is it really as essential as I suspect? But is a real commitment to it a kind of gamble - I mean, will my kids get into college even if 2nd grade was more or less lacking in extracurriculars? How do we protect the space children need to grow into who they are, while still helping them to be confident, competent participants in the world they live in?

in praise of intransigent, articulate, stubborn, creative and impossibly fidgety almost-eight-year-olds

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 17:02:00 +0000

So, Frances can be tough. Her intensity has always been something extraordinary to behold, in times of sparkling growth and during those painful, window-rattling meltdowns. She drives me batty; she takes my breath away. And as with all children - well, people, really - I could never give up those parts of her that can enrage me, because they are the very same parts that make her completely and perfectly wonderful. Completely and perfectly herself.

I was reminded of the double-edges of my eldest this morning, watching her walk to the neighbors' for a ride to school. How I wish I'd snuck a picture of her! Better that I didn't really, because we were enjoying a silly, tension-less leave-taking and I might have ruined it. So instead you'll have to imagine her: mary janes with two different socks (one spotted, one striped), brand new pants covered in a rainbow of butterflies (I thought she'd make an exception to her no-pants rules for them), a too-short dress with a print of large flowers in different shades of blue (she did decide that the pants were worth wearing, but she would still wear dresses everyday - so she picked a dress that was short, to better display the butterflies), the sweater jacket my mother knit for me in kindergarten with flowers embroidered on the front, and to top it all off? The navy blue adult-sized rain poncho Edith bought for her in Vermont, after she had admired the functionality and drape of an identical one that Edith's father Franklin was wearing.

The poncho almost dragged behind her, and gathered in bunches around her backpack straps. She marched off through the gently falling pink petals of our cherry tree, in the misty wet morning, the quiet everywhere, and yelled over her shoulder: Adieu! Adieu! I blew her kisses from behind the screen door, holding Bea over my shoulder.

As she did last year, she is planning a May Day party (early) during recess today. She made the invitations last night. She was dressed for the occasion. She dragged a heavy bag of animal crackers and pink lemonade along the sidewalk.

She is an artist, a party-spark, a bright jewel. I only hope that as she grows she keeps on learning to manage those big, boundless feelings that are ever moving, ever stirring, ever inspiring inside her.

a sweet storytime

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 14:51:00 +0000

yesterday

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 18:27:00 +0000

I was nursing the baby yesterday afternoon. She pulled off, looked up at me, and flashed one of her brand new, slightly awkward (yet absolutely stunning) smiles. Oh, I melted! Then Gabriel asked me for a snack, and I looked up at him to respond. Part of my brain registered something pleasantly warm run down my side and onto my lap. Hmm. Yes, apples and peanut butter. Let me get that for you.

When I stood up I finally figured out that the grinning baby had spit up what must have been all the milk she'd taken in, soaking my shirt, her shirt, and my pants. So we went upstairs to change. On the way back down, I felt - and heard - the most impressive, rumbling poop. Oh dear. Back upstairs, where it was clear that there'd been significant leakage. I determined there was still time to give the oozing, messy baby a quick, much-needed bath before the big kids had swimming lessons.

Holding the baby, a towel, a change of clothes and a clean diaper in the bathroom, I reached down to add the baby tub to my burdens and predictably dropped the diaper in the toilet. Ugh. Back to fetch a clean diaper. Back downstairs to bathe the babe on the kitchen counter. Back upstairs because I forgot the soap. Back down with the naked baby. My patience was sliding away from me, a thin rope that uncoiled and dragged along the floor behind me, tracing loops along the stairs. Thank God we live in a split level. (Did I just say that?)

Anyway. Once the tub was filled, I picked up the baby to put her in, and she immediately peed all over my front. I took off my shirt and used it to mop up the floor. The slender rope continued to slide away. Bur once the outrageously beautiful naked baby was finally laid in the little mesh sling in her bathtub, looking around peacefully with her clear blue eyes, I began to feel restored, and could not help covering her warm expansive belly in kisses.

Mike came in from mowing the lawn just as she pooped - again - a lot - in her tub. I think I screamed. My tenuous return to decent spirits was derailed.

He cleaned up the tub, I plunked the baby in our bathroom sink and rinsed her slippery body as best I could, found myself a shirt, dressed Beatrice, herded everyone into the minivan and made it to swimming only a little late. But I was a brittle, humorless shell of my usual self, and found Frances's contradictions and correcting (Mama, it was 6 minutes, not 5) and Gabriel's baby talk (You put on shoe shoes!) utterly intolerable.

We made it home. The dark cloud around me seemed immobile, impenetrable. But then something miraculous happened: Edith called. And we had time to talk! Edith is a kindred spirit, a friend of my heart, a bright light who lives in Colorado and has two sparkling children and a full time managerial nursing job and who I have not seen in nearly a year. I got to cry and complain and laugh and within minutes the rope - whose end I had bid adieu to hours ago - was neatly recoiled and put away where it belongs.

I really was all better. Edith, you saved me. The recovery was cemented later by Taco Sunday.

The survival of children, and most definitely the flourishing of children - at least mine - rests so solidly on the steady shoulders of good friends, those unsung heroes of family life! Oh my friends, near and far: thank you.

eat, sleep, play

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 00:18:00 +0000

Most of my creative energy these days remains absorbed by the demanding work of growing a baby. The scope of my concern is so narrow, so confined to the most essential: eating, sleeping. I recognize this is pretty boring stuff, so I really won't be hurt if you stop reading here!

The dinners are slowly petering out, and I'm back to cooking for my family on a regular basis. I've found my usual culinary ambitions (i.e. dishes that require chopping) have been seriously curbed by life with little Bea, and no one seems to mind too much - in fact the kids are probably hoping the spaghetti and eggs and quesadillas will last for a long time.

The reason I can handle quesadillas is that Beatrice is six weeks old, and breathing room - at least a bit of it - is reentering my life. Our dear babe can tolerate solitude for a few minutes at a time, doesn't scream for the entirety of short car trips, and - the most wonderful development - has started smiling at us. And a couple of nights ago she slept for five straight hours! Heavenly. It's crazy when doing a few dishes without a baby strapped to your torso seems luxurious, but that's where I am, and most of the time I don't mind it. This morning I ran into a very pregnant woman in the bottle/nursing aisle who was expecting her third, bracing herself for this intense newborn period. She said according to her husband, it's completely manageable when you know what to expect: two weeks of blissful falling in love, followed by four weeks from hell, followed by gradual easing - more sleep, more smiles - until by six months, everything comes up roses.

I don't know if I'd say the past month has been from hell exactly, but I guess the timeframe for a period of, ahem, serious challenges sounds about right to me. Slowly we are integrating this new person into our family, and the more regular life things we do together, like eat dinner (even if dinner is peanut butter sandwiches), sing songs in the car and - wonder of wonders - smile at one another, the better everything gets.

Beatrice is too little to partake, but she is always on someone's lap when we play this new game. Frances and I learned about it in Then There Were Five, one of the exquisite books in the Melendy quartet by Elizabeth Enright. Maybe one of you has a name for it? One person is It, and while It is not listening, everyone else decides on a person - either famous or from regular, shared life. Then the person who is It has to figure out the identity of the person by asking everyone what flower he or she most resembles, what gem, what color, what tree, what fruit, etc. Frances has an almost alarming genius for this game. Last night our friend Chester and I chose the mother of one of Gabriel's friends. She was peacock blue, a ruby, a paw paw tree...and Frances guessed it. We've done everyone in our family (I was brought to tears when I was It and Frances, tricky girl, did me - an amethyst! a deep, deep blue! a rose! a dolphin, goodness me!). Everyone except Beatrice. We need to get to know her a little better. These sweet little smiles are just the beginning.

p.s.

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 01:11:00 +0000

An hour or two after I called the pediatrician to finally ask about Beatrice's blocked tear duct, her eye miraculously cleared and I haven't had to wipe away any gooeyness since. And after I told you yesterday about the ravages of life with a newborn, I had a beautiful afternoon with my three children. (I'm not suggesting that the worst is over; just that things were so much brighter the next day!)

Since Frances is still on spring break, I decided to take them to our new favorite place for sweet warm drinks on this blustery, cold April day. We brought our deck of Uno cards and unlike many of our Uno games, nary a one of the three rounds we played ended in tears. Beatrice slept in the Moby wrap, then woke, nursed, needed a change, and sat on my lap and watched the action - and somehow I tended to all these needs relatively peacefully while keeping up my end of the game. (At this point, I'm used to doing things one-handed, and the kids are used to waiting.)

Then we had a totally fun, totally ridiculous walk around Eastport and over the bridge (the wind whipping Frances's hair while she danced ahead crazily shivering and singing, Gabriel laughing at her, me doing my best not to cramp her style with reminders to not get too far ahead of us). We played Red Light Green Light and noted cool dogs and brilliant purple pansies fluttering in the wind.

Gabriel had his first soccer practice tonight. It was so cold and he was exhausted at the end. Soon after we got home it was time to read stories and get ready for bed. I helped him brush his teeth and tuck him in, and he told me that all day at school he was thinking about how a few days ago I taught him to waltz in the hallway and hummed that song from Sleeping Beauty. "That's a really good song," he said. "It's so catchy. Can we do that again?" I almost cried with gratitude. That had been a precious sweet goofy moment in a hard afternoon and I had been thinking about it since too.

Here's to all the points of connection and intimacy that carry us through. Night night, everyone.

reality

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 15:55:00 +0000

So, I was going to tell you all about my worries as we all do our best to weather life with an increasingly fussy newborn. How Gabriel seems distant and spends more time face down on the couch - or lying on his back, face up, whispering imaginary stories to a lego creation or tiny plastic knight - than can possibly be salutary for a growing boy. How Frances lashes out at me without warning. How Mike is in the midst of the most stressful and busiest time of year at the college, leaving me on my own more than usual. How I am miserably short tempered and spent the wee hours of Easter morning crying in bed, absolutely wrecked with fatigue, unable to settle Beatrice.

But then last night, in the few moments I had with a quiet baby wrapped up on my chest, I looked at the most recent photos on our camera. The above one made me smile. Such a nice reminder that despite the 24/7 nature of baby-induced stress on this family, the kids are still their excellent selves. They still have each other in a major way. Mike took them to hunt eggs at church and snapped that picture while I recovered from my meltdown at home. One of the blessings of having a new baby with older kids is that they have so many meaningful worlds and relationships beyond our family. There are plenty of places they can go and people they can be with that are wonderfully the same.

Oh, I do worry about Gabriel. Indulge just a little more hand-wringing, would you please? He just seems wrapped in cotton batting, blunted around the edges. I have to say things to him twice or even three times sometimes before he snaps into focus and responds, and he seems to run into things more than usual (an interesting aside: a handful of friends have shared with me that their older kids became accident-prone in the weeks after a new brother or sister was born. It's as if the emotional stress saps physical coordination). I get irritated, he gets tearful. I miss him terribly. We came back together during his spring break last week, which was like balm for my worried soul, but somehow over the weekend he slipped away again.

This too shall pass! I keep reminding myself. These early weeks with Beatrice are hard, yet peppered with the sweetest moments - with her siblings, nursing, in the bathtub, in the arms of family and friends. I know I will find a tiny set of pajamas and ache for her one month old self when she is four months old. I can't wait for her to grow just a little more and start smiling; I can't get enough of her perfect tiny hands. Long days, short years, right?

infinite

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 23:25:00 +0000

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,

My love as deep. The more I give to thee,

The more I have, for both are infinite.

That's what my mom sent in an email to my sister Rachel and me yesterday. The words were spoken originally by Juliet, yet they are so much more breathtakingly beautiful and moving in the mouth of a mother speaking to her children. At least to me, though I concede I was a particularly susceptible reader yesterday morning, with my three week old baby in my arms on the anniversary of my father's death.

My dad and Beatrice missed each other by seventeen years. How is it possible, when I know with a certitude that extends deep into the marrow of my every bone, that they - just as with Frances and Gabriel - would adore one another? That maybe, just maybe, they do adore one another, for love is infinite and stronger than death? I can't explain the mechanics but that doesn't seem like a good reason to rule out the possibility.

Now that I am a mother, my own mother's heroic love becomes more extraordinary to me with every year. My dad would like that. Here I am nursing this new one, and dear readers, the more I think about it, the more I am astonished by the boundlessness of mother love.

two weeks

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 17:35:00 +0000

Was it really two weeks ago that Beatrice came to join us? Already the strangeness of time with children has settled in: it seems like she just got here, and yet also as if she's been here for a long, long time. In two short weeks she has been doing the usual grueling newborn work of eating, sleeping, pooping, and peeing (and growing - so reassuring to this nursing mother - some mornings it seems as if we can see the difference from the night before). She's also been the subject of Frances's science fair project (testing newborn vision), modeled countless outfits (a spitter-upper, she is), listened to Gabriel's chosen lullabies hundreds of times (Edelweiss and You Say He's Just a Friend), and been held by more than a dozen children. An auspicious beginning, don't you think?

More than anything I have been floored by the generosity of people near and far since she's been born. Well, the kindnesses were multiplying during my pregnancy, but this is an entirely new level. Longtime readers and friends probably remember when Annapolis felt like a foreign country to me, chilly and strange. How completely opposite the town that has opened up and supported us from every angle these past days! It's hard to believe I once felt so alone in this village. Dinners (so many dinners!!), fun play dates and rides for my big kids, perfect packages that come in the mail, flowers (we are awash in glorious tulips), not to mention abundant warmth, gentleness, congratulations, hugs, and beaming faces every time I venture forth back into regular life with this tiny growing babe.

One of the best gifts has been our short visits with friends. A steady trickle - mostly fellow mamas - come over and sit on the couch next to me, holding and smelling and admiring Beatrice. I love to share her and see her through others' eyes. It amplifies the sense that we have brought this baby into a loving and caring community, and that Mike and I have amazing parents all around us to provide inspiration, support, and solidarity. Plus I can't get enough of showing her off.

And now I must go. Gabriel's best pal (and Frances's first grade teaching assistant) is about to come over with dinner for tonight.

Thank you friends far and near! We are so moved by your kindnesses. How extraordinary, to be cared for by a community so broad and so deep.

beatrice

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 01:49:00 +0000

She came! Beatrice Helen Howell Brogan arrived on Friday, March 1st at 6:45 am, weighing a surprising 7 pounds 13 ounces and measuring a lovely, long 22 inches.

I am typing with one hand. There is so much to tell you about - the birth and our peaceful morning at the birth center, greeting the kids before they went off to school that day, the days since, the moments of realizing I have three children - but I think it can wait. For now, a few pictures of her first five days with us.

in love with now & desperate for tomorrow

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 03:07:00 +0000

I have been quiet lately, haven't I? This moment is so strange, this hovering on the edge of something difficult, wonderful, and oh-so-very different. I am standing with my toes hanging dangerously over the abyss, yet I am not in charge of determining when the great leap shall be made. How odd to know that a new person is about to saunter onto the stage, and never leave it. I have no idea who she is, but I know I will love her desperately for my whole life.

Bizarre, I tell you.

But this week of waiting has been sweet, sweet. Frances is on her midwinter break from school - something I have been complaining about loudly to anyone who will listen (Whoever heard of midwinter break! And spring break a month away...!) - but now that it is nearly over I am grateful for the timing. I'm lucky to have work that is flexible and that I have been slowly scaling back in preparation for a maternity leave. The child care issues were minimally stressful. Mostly I've been able to enjoy rare mornings with Frances while her brother is in school and long lazy afternoons the likes of which haven't been seen since the summer: playing with friends, reading a ton, baking, and watching The Sound of Music projected on our playroom wall.

It's not quite as harmonious as the Von Trapp family singers - changes in routine and this whole baby thing have us all on edge at times - but it is good. I find myself utterly besotted with my family as it is right now, in this perfect still moment. When the four of us are reading on the couch after dinner, when the children are guffawing conspiratorially with some adorably innocent secret naughtiness, when Gabriel floats on his back and sings in the bathtub, when Frances walks the whole way home from the library reading her newest book in utter absorption - I am smitten. I am awash in love for them. I can barely stand it.

So that is part of the strangeness, the quiet I am feeling just now. Anticipating change, my heart is impossibly tender towards the family that we are today. Yet with every shift and turn in my belly, I am positively desperate to meet this babe and welcome her into our fold. Like countless very pregnant women in every time and place, the waiting is wearing on me.

Oh! I love now. I can't wait for now to change forever.

getting real

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 14:44:00 +0000

Yesterday began with a curious tearful melt-down (Gabriel: Mama, the syrup is touching the pancakes!! sob sob sob...) and continued with many more tears, tantrums, refusals to cooperate, sibling-baiting, time outs, and odd complaints pulled from the air (Me: It's time to go to school, do you have your homework packed? Frances: Mama, why do I have to have a summer birthday? I HATE having a summer birthday. Let me tell you the eight reasons why...). Even though I worked half the day alongside adults, by the time Mike and I were cleaning up after dinner I was completely exhausted and ready to strangle both children. They were relentless, I tell you. Everything remotely frustrating, bad, or disappointing in their universe was my fault.

There were so many moments over the course of the day that I could do nothing more than endure. Unsalvageable nadirs of parenting. In the back of my mind, I kept thinking this must all have something to do with the baby's imminent arrival. On Tuesday I brought the kids with me to see the midwife who, upon hearing some of my symptoms and discovering I am 1 cm dilated, gave me a very hard time about the fact that we didn't yet have a bag packed. Or a clear plan for what to do with the kids. "A third kid can make or break a family," she told me with unforgiving firmness. "You need to get organized."

So the kids watched, or at least were dimly aware of, the flurry of activity that followed that appointment. They may have noticed that Mike has not left the house since without casually reminding me to call him if I'm going to have a baby.

At bedtime Frances seemed just as off as she had all day (after a monstrous post-dinner Clean Up Time) so I exhaled, climbed into bed next to her, and asked if she was worried about me or the baby.

"Not like, worried you'll die. But maybe you'll get really sick or hurt, and then you won't be able to talk care of me anymore ... actually, I think no matter what you won't be able to take care of me for about the next six years."

The worries came out in a flood then: how she won't be special anymore because she won't be the only daughter, how I won't have time to spend with her, how adults will only want to pay attention to the baby ("and just say dumb things to me like Isn't it nice to be a big sister!"), how I won't do things like make her snacks and help with her homework anymore. Which, apparently, I don't do often enough as it is.

I flashed back to a day in Lancaster almost five years ago. I was leaning over the tub, giving two-year-old Frances her bath. She was chattering about what we could give to the baby, until she got very quiet, and I noticed her lower lip was trembling (the tell-tale sign of deep sorrow that she still manifests, and still causes tears to spring to my eyes before I even know the cause of her sadness). Then she asked if she would have to give the baby her special blue and green socks too, and started to cry.

I picked her up right then and wrapped her up tight, and told her those socks were just for her. I still have them saved in a box, though Frances doesn't remember them or understand why a dirty worn pair of socks is tucked away alongside special mementos and tiny hand knit sweaters.

We talked last night for a long time. I tried to be honest with her about the big changes, and listen, and emphasize the unconditional boundless love that surrounds her and always will. And then, my daughter - the one whom (many of you know from experience) can talk without seeming to breath or blink for hours on end - rolled towards me and peacefully said good night. It may have been the first time she has ever initiated the end of the day.

I couldn't help but notice her sweetness this morning, and the relative calm with which she made it to school and walked into her classroom. Exhale, exhale, exhale.

easy street

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 01:58:00 +0000

Normally I see clients on Tuesday mornings, but between a natural tending-towards-maternity-leave lightening of the schedule and a couple of people who have recently switched to every other week, I realized as I made lunches this morning that I didn't need to go in to the counseling center. Four delicious, unscheduled hours stretched before me. All to myself!

Under normal circumstances I probably would have easily filled those hours with all the chores and errands and nesting tasks that periodically weigh on me in their un-addressed state: sorting baby hand-me-downs, finishing work odds and ends, cleaning the bathroom, catching up on email, changing the kids' sheets (I do not even know how long the current set has been in use...! I justify it with the thought that the kids tend to bed hop, and with the bunk beds in the rotation, maybe the sheets are half as icky as they might otherwise be...?). But first, after drop off, I used the last visit on my punch card at the Rec Center, baring my belly a bit sheepishly on the elliptical machine.

I got home and turned on the shower, intending to rinse off quickly and Get Down to Business. But then it was so very nice and steamy in there, and I had the realization that there are precious few anxiety-free showers, taken on my own terms, left before the baby arrives. The era of showering at leisure is coming to a close. And suddenly the whole morning and its purpose shifted.

I made a big cup of decaf and situated myself next to a couple of loads of laundry that needed folding, to give the semblance of productivity. Then I streamed the latest episode of Downton Abbey on the PBS website. At 10:30 in the morning! Can you stand it?! Watching that show is like eating cake. Really, really good cake. Even when you're crying (and believe me, I was), it goes down so very pleasantly.

I declined to volunteer to do some work items. I fussed around on my new laptop. I ate half a Trader Joe's dark chocolate bar. You get the idea. It was all extremely non-productive and leisurely, the time flew by, and before I knew it I had to pick up Gabriel. The weather was strangely springlike, warm and sunny, and we spent time outside without coats and then made paper pirate dolls. After we picked up Frances, played at her school in the sunshine with friends, and arrived home, instead of enforcing homework-doing or piano-practicing, I crawled under a blanket on the couch and announced I would be reading Harry Potter now.

It was just one of those days. Between this bowling ball of a baby head wedged into my pelvis, the gorgeous weather, and the anticipation of a vulnerable tiny new person in our family, I'm taking the path of least resistance. The sheets will get changed eventually. Just not today.

hurt head, hurt heart

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 01:56:00 +0000

My mom and her four month old puppy were visiting this weekend. After some initial rocky moments (mostly involving the dog trying to eat various treasured possessions, and a bit too much nipping when he was younger), mutual affection has been established between the kids and the dog. I do believe the many wild games of Dog Soccer in the backyard sealed the deal.

Last night the kids and the dog were a bit more worn out than usual, having run each other around all day long and then ended it all with a rousing Taco Sunday (which - oh my - featured the Smitten Kitchen apple cake with salted caramel gelato for the dessert). Amidst the clatter of dishes and the sound of running water, hunting down Gabriel for his bath proved a challenge. I looked all over the place for him, opening doors and peeking my head in, calling his name. I heard him yelling for privacy just as I opened his bedroom door but didn't react fast enough, and my head was stuck in just far enough to see him barreling towards me with both hands outstretched to slam the door shut. Which he did, with my head still between the frame and the door.

I think I screamed. Or yelled. It was a stunning pain, and I stumbled backwards, holding either side of my head, listening to Gabriel cry and yell incoherently about how he tried to tell me he needed privacy, and why did I come in, and why why why Mama? I knew I was scaring him, because I was having a hard time pulling myself together. I finally looked up and saw him clad in pajamas pants, the day's striped t-shirt, and a pajama shirt still stuck like a lion's mane around his dear, enormous head. His face was red and tears were streaming down it. I put it together: he was trying to surprise us by getting his pajamas on by himself, without being asked. Not only had I ruined his surprise, but I had found him in an embarrassing moment of dressing/undressing confusion: the clothes had not come off first, and now he was stuck dealing with two tops, one of which he couldn't dislodge from his head. And to seal the deal, in the midst of all this, the poor boy had to grapple with the fact of having given his mother a serious head injury.

So he cried. And sputtered. The water was still running. I lowered myself onto the edge of the tub, beginning to cry myself, and beckoned him into the bathroom. I said, tell me you're sorry you hurt my head.

I'm sorry Mama. (sob, sob, choke). But you really hurt my feelings!

Yes. And you really hurt my head!

More tears, from both of us. The floodgates opened and we couldn't stop. I started to undress Gabriel and we kept on crying. I turned the water off; the sudden quiet slowed us down a bit.

This is getting silly, I said through my tears.

Yeah, said Gabriel. We should stop crying or we'll be crying all night!!

So we managed to stop, though I felt the tears inside me, so many more, still desperate to get out. I fought them back, just as I fought the strange urge to bury my head on Gabriel's shoulder and let him comfort me. Not what a four year old needs.

But he knew. Finally settled in the tub and calm, Gabriel looked up and said, I know, Mama. You get in the tub with me and we'll ask Papa to give us our bath!

This sweetness nearly knocked me over, this recognition of my need to not be the one taking care of others just then, my vulnerability, the intimacy that our shared tears had brought on. Later I tried to tell Mike about it all and started crying all over again. It was a bit bewildering, until I realized that it had nothing to do with a hurt head, but really with the grief that has been sneaking up on me as my due date approaches. Gabriel will still be my baby, but he won't be The Baby. Everything will change.

Tonight Frances asked if I would snuggle in bed with her instead of let her read quietly for few minutes before lights out. I got in next to her and she burrowed down next to my big belly, feeling the baby move against her skinny arms.

Mama. When the baby comes we won't be our happy family of four anymore.

It's true. We're all feeling it, I guess. It's scary to draw closer to an imminent, irreversible change. We'll soon be a happy family of five, I am certain, but saying goodbye to this sweet chapter in order to turn the page and discover how the next begins...? My heart is full, so full it hurts.

happiness is...

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 01:47:00 +0000

Something prompted me to free this dusty postcard from its magnets today, this postcard that has long been tucked into a corner on the side of the refrigerator between pictures of babes and artwork and who knows what else. When I turned it over, it made me smile all over.

When Frances was three, she had already loved Pete Seeger's music for a long time. She became a fan as a baby, calling out for her favorites from the backseat of the car over and over again. Track #24 on a certain CD collection...what was it again? I've Been Working on the Railroad. Yes. So many times. We heard it hundreds of times, easily. All before her first birthday.

So when she discovered at the age of three (how, I'm not sure) that Pete would be celebrating his 90th birthday, she determined to send him a card. It was delightful. And the most amazing thing? He wrote back! More amazing still, he wrote back months later, which makes a person suppose Pete Seeger slowly and faithfully goes through all his fan mail. And when a three year old sends him a birthday card, he responds.

I've been a bit weighed down lately by all the quotidian stuff of life that can get heavy sometimes: a cold that lingers endlessly, financial aid applications, gray hairs, ornery children, laundry that won't fold and put itself away. Rainy days. Nothing too awful, just a sense of heaviness.

But something about re-discovering that postcard lifted my spirits, and then the snowball just kept rolling, and so many things came into focus before my eyes today and suffused me with a sense of - for lack of a better word - happiness. Here's my little list of the moments that brought me back to myself.

Today, happiness was...

...hearing Frances earnestly pronounce that the book she is reading is the best book ever - three separate times, about three separate titles, within a couple of hours.

...watching Gabriel dive wholeheartedly into Mike's arms to say goodnight, seeing them in profile, nose-to-nose, lit by a bedside lamp, in a cocoon of security and love.

...doing what I love, at both my jobs, and in Spanish no less!

...smelling white bean and kale soup (maybe slightly less mousey than carrot soup?) simmering on the stove, which proved to be a simple yet satisfying meal. (So easy too: I had white beans I'd soaked and cooked the day before. I sauteed onions, garlic, and carrot in olive oil for a bit, then added vegetable broth and simmered, added 2 - 3 cups cooked white beans, simmered some more, and pureed. Then stirred in a bunch of kale sliced into thin ribbons at the end. Top with tons of parmesan and some black pepper. Perfect for a house full of sickies).

...reading an email from a friend with a 15 week old which consisted mainly in suggestions for a baby registry, all of them very astute, practical, and ultimately grounding. Yes, we will need a lot of baby wipes. Yes, three jars of Aquaphor would be better than one! Oh my. This baby will come, and she will stay.

...listening to Frances practice the piano. Then listening to Mike playing scales. Then watching Gabriel dance passionately to his own music before bedtime.

p.s. Just in case any of you were wondering what sort of postcard Pete Seeger likes to send, there you have it! There are so many, many things on my before-the-baby-comes to do list, but now I have mentally placed - at the very top of it - framing this family artifact.

money talks

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 03:31:00 +0000

Ah, carrot soup! Fitting fare for a destitute family of church mice, don't you think? Either that, or it's the terribly predictable Wednesday night choice of this demographically dull yoga-practicing, New Yorker-reading, Downton Abbey-watching mother and longtime Smitten Kitchen devotee (it's one of her latest recipes - the lemon tahini dollop is what grabbed me).

This morning on the way to school Frances observed that everyone she knows has gone on a ski vacation with his or her family this winter. Why don't we ever go skiing? Gabriel piped up, adding "or snowboarding at least??" This came just a couple of days after Frances asked me on our walk if she would ever have a horse, like some of her friends do. Or a gold bracelet with her horse's name engraved on it, like one friend in particular. No Frances, I don't think you will have a horse.

And this morning, I was a bit ragged around the edges with a cold and the residual effects of a madder-than-usual dash out the door, and I told Frances that many of her friends at school have a lot more money than we do, and not everyone goes on ski vacations every winter. In fact, hardly anyone does. It just seems like a lot of people do because you go to a fancy private school!

Oh, I do believe I became high and mighty, and lectured in a rather unhelpful way about how we are blessed with far more than most human beings on the planet, and how her school is great for SO many reasons but one of them is not teaching children firsthand about who all the different kinds of people are that live in our community. How could ski vacations and horse ownership be my second grader's peer group norm???

At one point she said pointedly and with a daring frown, "So I guess we're poor then." Buttons effectively pushed, thank you. I came right back swinging, about how we have so many riches in our lives (you may gag now): love, friends, family, plenty to eat (potfuls of carrot soup!), etc. "Oh, so we get to have breakfast and take walks together? Great, Mama." (Insert eye roll).

Really?? I loved my yogurt and fruit and granola this morning! I love our walks! But sure, yes - and this I did not say aloud - a ski vacation would be nice too.

The truth is, I imagine, not so much that she is comparing her possessions to those of her friends at school but rather that she is picking up on the provider anxiety that comes with new babies around here, the small panic that rippled through her parents when we discovered our second car required more work than it is worth the day after we bought a minivan, the little groans that come with certain bills. She seems worried, in a global, inchoate sense, that there won't be enough. And can you imagine? Shaking her by the shoulders and insisting through gritted teeth that we are rich in love and that's enough!! does not seem to be reassuring her.

Back when I worked on Fresh Air, Terry used to note how curious it was that people were happy to answer questions about failed marriages, past abuse, and drug addiction yet became offended if asked about their money. I can only begin to understand why I became so agitated this morning when Frances suggested we were poor and said she wished we had more money. All kinds of unsettled questions and worries - the dark, murky bottoms of which I cannot see from here - got stirred up in me.

Could it all have had anything to do with the call that I received an hour later, saying that Frances felt sick and needed to go home? She was suspiciously chipper when I picked her up in the lower school office. Maybe she needed reassurance of another sort (not the shoulder-shaking kind).

Oh Frances. There will always be enough.

favorites

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 01:15:00 +0000

Here are a couple of my favorite moments from this holidays-to-real life transitional week, during which Frances hasn't yet gone back to school, Gabriel returned to school on Wednesday, I returned to work on Thursday, and Mike is preparing to return to teaching on Monday:

Frances and I dropped Gabriel off at preschool on Wednesday morning and headed across the street to a cafe, where we bought special drinks, squeezed into a big, cushy chair, and finished reading the thrilling tale of The Mysterious Benedict Society to the very end. It took over an hour. Then we went for a cold, sunny walk in Eastport and mulled all the shocking revelations from the many finales over and over, until it was time to pick up Gabriel. Perfect, perfect morning.

Today I woke up and snuck downstairs to do a prenatal yoga video before the kids were up. Of course, that lasted about five minutes, at which point I heard them pounding their way downstairs. Gabriel rolled out a mat next to mine and did some of his own outrageous asanas, then fell quiet and watched the teacher on the screen for a while. Suddenly he said, in his best valley girl voice, Oh. My. God. Look at her butt. It is so big. (You may recognize that line from the intro to Sir Mix-A-Lot's timeless classic...he watched Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake perform it - admirably - as part of their History of Rap series and thought that particular song was the funniest thing he'd ever heard).

It has been a blessedly gentle re-entry! And I am glad for it, since we are all in various stages of a persistent cold, and I do feel like clinging to all the time together we've had. Part of me is unwilling to go back to regular life, with its routines that take us in four different directions. Once we take the plunge on Monday and start kicking it will be fine and even good, but for now I am hesitating on the pebbly shore, reluctantly considering the chilly water.

Indulge my senseless clinging, would you? Here are some more favorite moments from the past two weeks...

work for the new year

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 01:52:00 +0000

So today, after ignoring the enormous pile of wood chips in our side yard that has been looking at me expectantly for the past two weeks (since I was the one who talked to the tree guys working at our neighbors' house and explicitly invited the chips to come and stay), I decided it was time to break out the shovel and wheelbarrow and get to work. Gabriel joined me and despite the fact that I am feeling rather heavy with child these days, at first it was all kind of great. We plugged on merrily, slow and steady, me with my big belly channeling the spirit of Ma Ingalls, or one of those domestic homesteading paragons we've all encountered on the internet, or maybe just the older Lancaster County farm women who seem to glow with strength and stamina whenever I see them at their market stands on visits. Surely they have all shoveled their share of third trimester wood chips?

Gabriel developed his own technique, sometimes digging deep holes in the pile with long sticks, sometimes hurling rocks at the pile, and eventually using a lacrosse stick to load up his wheelbarrow.

And then, about half an hour later ... my arms and back began to ache. The enormity of the job began to discourage. And Gabriel, who had wandered into other parts of the yard, suggested a story inside would be more fun. Yet I persisted, for a few more loads at least. And then went out later in the day to shovel some more. The pile compelled me.

This holiday break has been so lovely, filled to the brim with family and friends (pictures soon to come), and the last few days have focused on the wood chip-like work that we have been waiting til now to do, before this baby girl comes to join us in two short months. Ikea furniture assembly! Hand-me-down sorting and organization! Even the enormous pot of minestrone I made for friends last night that had me chopping kale and potatoes into tiny pieces for what seemed like hours. It has all required a slower pace, a refusal to multi-task, a giving over to the sometimes tedious, sometimes soothing nature of work with our hands.

It's been restorative. We've been working on it all together. Gabriel goes back to school tomorrow, I go back to work the next day, and everything will slide into a much faster, frenetic pace before I know it. So right now I am soaking in - as best I can - the stillness, the starkness of backyard birds on bare branches, the lingering hugs, the slow mornings in pajamas. The extraordinary pleasure of being our family of four, before we grow and change once again!

Happy, happy new year to all of you. May 2013 be filled with peace, health, and joy in your homes and in your communities. I do think it's going to be a good year.

pre-dawn confession

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 11:20:00 +0000

It was a dark and stormy night. Well, not that stormy, but it was dark, owing to the bizarre power outages in Annapolis last night (it always feels ominous when this happens, our new normal). And out of the inky blackness, after many hours of waiting, came my knight in shining armor. Which is to say my husband, wearied from fighting off a cold and the accumulated hours spent in icky car dealerships, and he was driving a shining silver minivan.

We did it. After many days of deliberations, research, money talk, values talk, and test driving, we said goodbye to our trusty little Fit and bought a minivan.

And at 4:30 this morning I was wide awake, wondering if the power was back on, wondering how I can possibly finish all the holiday preparations, and more than anything contemplating what it would be like to drive the kids to school today.

I'm thirty weeks pregnant, and if I didn't completely believe that this baby will soon be joining our family before, the enormous gleaming vehicle in our driveway makes it all undeniably real. She's worth it, yes? A brand new person, someone who I hope will, with her one unique and precious life, increase the portions of goodness and beauty and truth in the world? She merits a minivan.

Eventually the sun will rise and I'll get a good look at this thing. Happy Solstice, my friends.

the gloaming

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 02:07:00 +0000

My children don't know what happened in Connecticut on Friday. In a way, I still don't know what happened. I can only bear to absorb tiny bits and pieces at a time, and for now I think I am saturated. I haven't read any more news today, nor have I indulged my public radio habit in the car.

You'd think that in the light of unthinkable violence like this, I'd hold my kids tight and tell them how much I love them. But that wasn't what happened for me - the shock and grief were so great, and I felt myself withdrawing, hiding away, becoming irritable when they asked for something twice. That is one of the strangest things about grief: at a time when we need each other the most, we isolate ourselves. At least I know I do, sometimes. I just finished a novel in which the protagonist patiently and tenderly cares for his dying mother for many months, and when she does die, he asks his friends and daughter to give him one week. One week in his bed, alone. When the week is out they can come get him and bring him back to life.

So I suppose I am lucky the weekend was busy, because part of me wanted to take to my bed. Away from my kids and their need, away from my responsibilities, awash in my white comforter, with only the view from my bedroom window to distract. It is a selfish impulse.

But that didn't happen; too much to do. Saturday passed and still Frances had not discovered that something was terribly wrong in the world. Then at church this morning, one of our priests prayed at the opening of the service for the children who were killed, naming them all, slowly, deliberately. I could feel so many others crying with me, and was grateful that we went to church that morning after all, even though I hadn't wanted to. You can't hide away when you're smashed seven in a pew. You can't turn away from pain and grief when they are a palpable presence, held by everyone in a room.

We went to lunch at an older couple's house that Mike works with. They filled our kids' glasses with undiluted juice, offered seconds on sweets, and brought out a box of toys from when their children were young. We came home, crafted, went on walks. Before we went to our neighbors' house for dinner, Gabriel and I took clippers outside to cut back the raspberry bushes. The day was grey and moist, and even though it was just four in the afternoon we could feel the evening rapidly rushing in. I realized it's almost the solstice, the twilight of the year.

We admired the red branches' soft, dense thorns, the ring of pale green surrounding the white center of the branch that was revealed when we cut through at a thick-enough spot.

At Taco Sunday Katie let the children wear her reading glasses while we talked and they played school. She offered Gabriel his first bite of lobster (a hit), then later she and Chester surprised the children (and us) with tiny individual cups of Ben & Jerry's for dessert.

We were fed and cared for all day, and it was a fine reminder that everyday expressions of love are a powerful thing, a source of healing and light in the world that cannot be undone. I cannot conceive of the grief so many are going through right now, but I can imagine the love and care and help surrounding them. And so even if my kids do find out about what happened, or begin to ask questions, after today I feel more hopeful about their ability to bear it.

Mr. Rogers' mother advised him to "look for the helpers" when scary things happened in the news when he was a child. Look for the caring people in this world. No matter the depth of tragedy, you will never have to look far. It's no small thing.

12.12.12

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 02:03:00 +0000

Frances tells us that today, the twelfth day of the twelfth month of the twelfth year of the twenty-first century, at 12:12 pm and 12 seconds, her entire class let out a bit whoop of happy amazement. Then it was 12:12 and 13 seconds and they got back to second grade business.

I do think she may always remember that moment. It is the kind of thrilling stuff that drills indelibly into a seven year old's brain. At dinner tonight she earnestly pitied her poor baby sister who will join us in 2013, long after the possibility of such magical dates has expired, at least for their lifetimes.

It seemed like a fine day to share some of our latest favorite things. And so, in no particular order, I present to you a snapshot of what is bringing color and depth to our lives on this oh-so-momentous date:

1. Arcadia. I find this novel captivating. It pains me to put it down, which I sadly must do often. I wept through the first chapters as sensitive, mystical little Bit, the protagonist, makes his way on a commune in upstate New York. The prose is perfect, and Groff - with amazing accuracy - captures a child's magical understanding of events (including the severe depression that renders Bit's mother unreachable - particularly heart-wrenching for this pregnant mother who has recently returned to clinical work).

2. Daniel Handler on Fresh Air. A really and truly delightful conversation. Could he and Terry have hit it off any better? I listened at the gym and laughed out loud far too often, which was sort of embarrassing.

3. A sincere longing for open time to mosey into holiday projects with the kids. Until the end of next week though, we are on our regular schedule, in which the downtime together that I am craving seems in short supply. So stringing popcorn, making ornaments, and rolling pinecones in peanut butter and birdseed will have to wait.

4. The return of granola. I haven't made it since I became pregnant, which would have been, oh my goodness, some twenty-nine weeks ago. My family has gone without for a long time. Maybe it's some kind of third trimester-induced desire to nurture, but I couldn't stand it for a minute longer today and finally filled the jar back up just before Gabriel and I went to pick up Frances. (My simple bare bones recipe is here).

5. Sufjan Stevens' Songs for Christmas. This music has become forever associated with the season for me (some of the songs are achingly, transcendently beautiful - listen to his original Sister Winter sometime) and now I hear he has a new box set of Christmas songs called Silver & Gold. Oh my. I don't think we can wait for Christmas morning, because I imagine these are songs best spooled out slowly over days...in the meantime though the same old melodies are feeding my soul, and helped give me patience as I put the lights up on our fussy tree this afternoon.

6. The return of the Spy Network.

The children found their old box, folded and creased and - at least I thought - rendered unrecognizable by the ravages of life in the garage over the past few months. But no. An innocent venture in search of a hammer led to a fantastic discovery: Look, it's the Spy Network!! Then before I knew it the two of them were lugging it through the kitchen and down to the playroom, cleaning it out, posting new rules, and placing important spy items inside: my kitchen scissors, tape, a telescope (really? from where?), and the big heavy red dictionary. Why does Frances need the dictionary, you ask? Why, because it has morse code in it, of course.

7. Fresh cranberries. Fold them into nearly any baked good and it will be that much better, tart and fresh. Seriously. I made banana buttermilk cranberry muffins for Mike's last classes earlier in the week (I am still feeling rather proud of the nice gesture) and happily there were extras for us.

Now. Will you tell me what is floating your boat today?

preparations

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 02:40:00 +0000

With the addition of a new part-time job, life feels a bit more slippery these days. I can't quite get a handle on where I'm supposed to be and what I'm supposed to be doing, and my mind quietly emits unbidden reminders of strange and unrelated responsibilities at odd times of the day: what will we do for teacher presents? Have I called that friend back? When will I be able to exercise again? What will we do about the car that is falling apart? Frances needs socks. When will I get Frances socks?

But despite the occasional buzzing in my mind and some family-wide growing pains, I have been amazed of late to notice that Christmas is happening despite it all. We are getting ready. Friends brought the children their presents early and Frances has been wearing her beautiful Christmas dress and new sparkly red shoes ever since. We've baked cookies. The kids have been making secret packages for their friends, the contents (and outer wrappings) of which may be trash to some, but hopefully will be treasure to the receivers. We just came back from practicing for the pageant. I got together with friends last week to make ornaments.

Gabriel and I brought up the holiday boxes and he went nuts digging through everything, finding bits of ribbon and boxes, the holiday storybooks, the stockings, the lights.

Life has this way of carrying us along, which I find immensely reassuring, given the sense I have every so often of ineffectively thrashing about. All will be well, and all will slow down: most immediately during the holidays, when we will all be off of school and work and can luxuriate in pajamas together. And soon, so soon, this new babe will arrive and set me straight. Teacher gifts? The preschool coop schedule? All these obligations will settle down in a heap like so many worn-out puppies, and we will return to the essentials: eat, sleep, touch, breathe.

Gabriel tried to push his way into Frances's room after she yelled at him not to come in as we got ready for bed tonight. I gave him a hard time about not respecting privacy, and he wept bitter tears, telling me that she will never, never let him in her room to play with her.

Have you told her you like to spend time playing with her in her room?

But she - sob - won't let me anyway!!!

I convinced him to ask her to talk about it. We knocked and she reluctantly admitted us. We sat down on the bed together and Gabriel humbly, heartbreakingly told his big sister that he liked to be with her in her room, and could he sometimes? Frances wrapped her skinny arms around him and told him yes, yes. But knock first, okay? Then they climbed into bed to read together and told me to go downstairs please.

See what I mean? Sometimes all it takes is a gesture, a nudge, and life carries along the rest. Tiny Christmas miracles, everywhere I look.

words for aliens

noreply@blogger.com (Meagan) — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 02:56:00 +0000

It's happening. Gabriel is entering the magical time when the connection between spoken words, stories, images and written symbols on a page is becoming real. He strings together letters to label and title his drawings. He asks what the word he has written sounds like, and when I say heelohzackillsss he laughs in a goofy way that is nonetheless tinged by awe. Did he really create that sound, just by putting all those letters together??

We experienced this before with Frances, in a different way that was just as delightful and mesmerizing. It's a happy discovery, learning that it doesn't really matter how many children you've witnessed opening to the power of reading and writing - it is just as incredible, every time.

Last night at Taco Sunday Gabriel made a Book of Aliens. Each page was numbered and depicted a different planet with its inhabitants. Each planet was labeled and as we looked through and added to his book this afternoon, he explained: These aliens are from the planet R-E-S. How do you say that, Mama?

I think Tintin taught him about using word bubbles with his pictures. In the Book of Aliens, on different planets aliens alternately say "hih," "ih," "hie," and "hii"- and Gabriel was beside himself when I pronounced them for him, more or less, as "Hi!". Did he really write Hi??

Pretty close, kiddo. It just gets better and better from here on out.