The Not-Ever-Still Life

Keep your eyes on her winning smile

noreply@blogger.com (Robin (noteverstill/noteversewing)) — Fri, 24 May 2013 00:12:00 +0000

This is the face of a girl, not quite five-and-a-half years old, who just lost her first tooth.

This is also the face of a girl who wandered into our neighbors' yard last night for some energetic post-dinner trampolining wearing a full blue catch-good-air tutu skirt...and no underpants. But that's another story for another day.

Tend your garden

noreply@blogger.com (Robin (noteverstill/noteversewing)) — Tue, 21 May 2013 01:58:00 +0000

On Mother's Day we planted our garden. It's all I want and it's become tradition. It's not the activity of choice for any other person but they humor me because they have to do so and we traipse to the garden center and get pepper plants and eggplant plants and tomato plants and pretty flowers and flashy annuals and fragrant herbs in 4" pots and we get home and it's a dirt frenzy, all peat and trowels and watering cans and bare feet. It's the herald of real spring, Official spring, and then the house is garlanded in jewels and I can begin my annual tradition of the Shaking of the Fist at the black squirrel who eats my tomatoes. We might not be high-yield gardeners, but we're tenacious.

There are the in-ground plantings and the small pots on the back porch and the few pots at the bottom of the back porch steps and the large pot on the front porch and the new one I added on Mother's Day between the porch and the garage and suddenly the weather is warm, hot even.

Every night we come home, all a tumble out of two cars almost at once, purse and laptop bag and backpack, backpack, backpack, papers and art projects, permission slips and precious ephemera, pinecones and stickers and wilted dandelions, bent paper clips.

We fall over each other into the house, shoes in the hall and someone needs the bathroom, someone needs a drink, bags drop, projects unfold at the kitchen table, energy expands, unpacking all the buttoned-up proper hours for barefoot evening, belly laughs and belly rubs, shenanigans and some kid runs pantsless into the backyard, we're entropy and cacophony and those snakes that pop out a can, a shaken two-liter of seltzer, a perpetual motion toy bouncing every way at once.

Slowly the pieces settle, float down to the floor, and the walls sigh in relief. Another reentry and no new cracks. There will be dinner and there may be homework and there might be baths and knotty hair and missing favorite books or pajamas. There will be the needs of night's routine. But first there is a space, cumulus, where everyone is anywhere and I can slip out.

The faucet sprays my toes. I fill the watering can and I circumnavigate the house: the container on the porch and the one by the garage and the new roses on the side; the herbs and the sunflowers, the containers on the back steps, and the tomatoes and their friends. It's five minutes, quiet and rhythmic, spreading water where it's needed, nurturing the thirsty plants, and then I walk back in and ask who's hungry.

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Corner dragon

noreply@blogger.com (Robin (noteverstill/noteversewing)) — Mon, 20 May 2013 03:46:00 +0000

This little guy, a dragon on his back, smiling, sucking his thumb, he lives on the ledge of the sink in our master bathroom. He's incongruous to the rest of the house but he's always been with me, years now, dorm room to shared apartment to my own apartment to our townhouse to our home.

He was a gift, the little dragon, from someone who meant a lot to me but whom I never could understand. We were close but she kept herself unknowable. I knew all her stories but only the emotionless versions. But we were great complements: I tamed her too-reckless plans and she taught me not to bring too much worry to adventure.

She was gone for a few days, once, traveling to visit family, and brought this little dragon home to me. A token of friendship, she said, and his smile made her think of me. I haven't seen or spoken to her in a very long time. Her tumultuous life took a few more tumultuous turns. My more cautious life took a more predictable trajectory. The two couldn't dovetail too fluidly. But I always have my dragon and her fingerprint on my memories. She was a good influence on me, even if our stories put to paper wouldn't read that way.

Sometimes in the traffic congestion of bedtime one kid or another will brush teeth in our bathroom. Tell me about the dragon, I'm occasionally asked. He's a memento, I just say, an old memory with a broad smile.

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This post was inspired by the novel A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra, and the particular story lines of the beefeater figurine and the suitcase of souvenirs. In a war torn Chechnya, a young fatherless girl, a family friend, and a hardened doctor struggle with love and loss. Join From Left to Write on May 20 as we discuss Anthony Marra's debut novel. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.
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The boyfriends

noreply@blogger.com (Robin (noteverstill/noteversewing)) — Sun, 19 May 2013 04:44:00 +0000

For most of this school year, E has been talking about her boyfriend, a sweet classmate who, just in case he becomes a long-term character in this here story, we'll just call N. He's a great boy, kind, cute, funny. He's smart: they're in the highest reading group together and the skip morning meeting together to go to advanced math. Sometimes they hold hands, her teacher tells me. They have a secret hand-tapping code to communicate with each other across the classroom. I never fell in love with a boy as a seven-year-old and I have a hard time understanding exactly how deep her feelings can run, but she's sincere in her expressions. And he seems to reciprocate them.

We've been hearing about N since November or so and after all this time, L has internalized some of her sister's language. We didn't know that, though.

When L and I had our mama-daughter day a few weeks ago, we concluded with lunch at a restaurant she enjoys. We were there later than the lunch crowd but too early for dinner and the place was nearly empty. L was spinning on the swivel stools and generally being extra adorable, and she charmed the shift manager. They shared some repartee and he left to sweep the floor. He returned with a large cookie in his hand and made a great show of offering it to her. But I don't like that kind! she yelled with brazen honesty. He laughed. "What kind do you like, sweetheart?" And that is how L scored a chocolate chip cookie the size of her face.

They exchanged names. He complimented her eyes. She complimented his silver hair and gold tooth. They high-fived and eventually, we left.

As we replayed our day in conversation, L marveled that out of the kindness of his heart, Melvin had given her the biggest cookie of her life. It just made her so happy. All the experiences of that day paled. The cookie was the keystone. Her gratitude and wonder and amazement at his generosity filled her heart and disposition. Sounds like love, right? By the time we reached the end of the day, she'd decided that Melvin is her boyfriend.

And now whenever E talks about N, L brings up Melvin. When can we see Melvin again? And what if we go there and Melvin isn't working that day? And where does Melvin go when he isn't at work? We have a lot of conversations about the man who bought her heart with chocolate. And there isn't any easy way to tell her that a 50-something man is probably not the best match for her first great love, nor that we might really never see him again, nor that he might not remember her name if we ever do see him again, and especially not that he's not likely to repeat the free cookie trick. She'll hear none of it, though. She's in love.

What we know about N: his favorite color is red. He loves soccer and basketball and went skiing with his family in Idaho over winter break. He has an older brother and lovely, accomplished, attentive parents. What we know about Melvin: he's bold enough to give away the confections. And he is (based on looks) old enough to be L's grandpa.

E has just a few weeks of school and we wonder: will N's charms extend across summer vacation and into the next school year? But L has bigger challenges to confront: her man works over in another county, and her mama might not find reason to feed her there again any time soon.

This is what we know. Young love may turn out to be an anecdote and nothing more, or an epic love story. E was drawn to a boy of great intellect and character. And L: her love can be bought with sugar.

(But we already knew that.)

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Electronic mail

noreply@blogger.com (Robin (noteverstill/noteversewing)) — Tue, 14 May 2013 22:53:00 +0000

image via Wiertz Sebastien

We were reading a book** together in which third grader best friends are torn apart when one of the friends has to move away because of a parent's job reassignment. As the boy who leaves rides away in his parents' car, he calls his friend: "Hey, Piper. What's your email address?"

Get off the bus! yelled my E, because that's what Piper always says in excitement. I knew kids could have email!

I didn't know it was a fact to be disproven but her enthusiam was darling. The best part about spending time with children is observing their delight at observing all those things to which we've grown so accustomed that we forget to acknowledge their wonder. It didn't take her more than a minute to ask for an email account, but it did take her much more than that to contain her surprise when I said yes.

We reviewed some rules. I disabled almost all the features. She knows I have her password and not to open any attachments or forward any mass messages. She knows that her mail is auto-forwarded to my account. There are no generations of internet-savvy parenting tricks to rely on, so we're approaching this slowly and unjadedly. But my girl: she doesn't know about predators and identity theft and sexting. She's just excited to email her friends (or their parents) for play dates. One day we'll have to relax her restrictions, but first she'll have years of transparently supervised access to this fine world wide web we know and love.

I got my first email address in my first year of college, I told her. And the computer showed words on a black screen with green letters. And I had to walk to a pay phone and drop in a token to make a phone call. Communication was an entirely different phenomenon. She listened, slack jawed, and couldn't even imagine what that was like. This new world moves so fast and of course she wants to be a part of it. And so we give her access, carefully, because truly it's her birthright.

**If you have a Piper Reed fan in your house, you should know that by looking up book 5 in Amazon to provide that link, I learned that book 6 comes out at the end of this month. Get off the bus!

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The Girls

noreply@blogger.com (Robin (noteverstill/noteversewing)) — Fri, 10 May 2013 23:38:00 +0000

This is a story of adult pragmatism vs. child-heart desire:

The girls have been asking for American Girl dolls for forever and a day and it must be said that our kids don't seem to be deprived for playthings, and if you know anything about American Girl dolls, it is that they are pricey. They are also, though, rather wonderful: more detailed than most dolls, with extensive back stories, many of which are based on historical vignettes. They have a lot going for them if you can overlook the price tag and the cult-like following (and that the brand was sold to Mattel a decade ago and American Girl dolls are all now made in China. But I digress.).

For an unusually expensive request, I wanted to ensure that its fulfillment would be recognized as rare and wonderful, and we told the girls that they could get them at the end of the school year if they still wanted them. It's okay to have to wait for something you want. And anticipation can be a wonderful emotion.

And then, because if we're going to do something, let's do something, I planned to take the girls to the flagship American Girl store in New York City. We would use some of the lovely husband's constantly-accruing hotel points (the ones I used to trade in for locales like Puerto Rico) and go overnight to New York and make an event. And we could go see a Broadway show. And everything would be magical.

The girls were so excited but I couldn't book the trip because we were waiting on some business travel plans of said lovely husband to be finalized. By the time we knew we could go, the Broadway show we wanted to see and our favorite points-redeeming Times Square hotel were both sold out. We could go another time but camp was starting and maybe we'd just go in August...?

The girls didn't know that there is an American Girl doll store at a mall a half-hour from us in Northern Virginia. They were content enough to wait.

Then E received a birthday invitation from one of her very favorite friends, and it was for...take a guess...a child+doll brunch at the American Girl doll store. E burst into tears. Each of the other half-dozen invitees has one or even two American Girl dolls already. She could tell me without thinking who had McKenna and who had Emily and who had Rebecca. She didn't want to go to the party.

Then her friend got upset, because she didn't want to have the party without E. And both girls were crying about a party that should be celebratory, and then we didn't know if we'd even be able to go up to New York in August because the lovely husband has this huge symposium and there are only 10 days between the end of camp and the beginning of school and we've already planned to be at the beach for six of those days and

on Sunday, I took the two girls to the mall in Virginia. The best laid plans, and all, but this was money I had already been willing to spend on them and it was becoming silly to continue holding out on spending it.

Meet Molly and Ruthie. Never have two dolls been ever more beloved in the history of girlhood. They have been more loved than any other toy I've seen cross our threshold, and all my skepticism was entirely unwarranted, and now E can give you a dissertation on the Great Depression and L is an expert on World War II. It is completely amazing to me how much the girls, who have always had dolls, are playing so much with their Girls. Despite all my hesitation, this was a good decision, and it needn't have been so much of a big deal in my head.

E and Ruthie are headed to that birthday party next week. L is planning out our Victory Garden (remember that Molly doesn't like turnips and I don't, either!). And it turns out that the stars have aligned and there is exactly one night in August when calendar, Broadway tickets, and hotel availability are all willing to collaborate for a grand noteverstill girls' and Girls' overnight to NYC. We don't need to buy the dolls, now, of course, but every Girl likes to buy a new frock or two once in a while.

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Get off the couch

noreply@blogger.com (Robin (noteverstill/noteversewing)) — Fri, 10 May 2013 03:50:00 +0000

I type to you from the couch, you know. It's my home office.

A few months ago, a dear friend told me that her son had told her that he wants to run in his school's end-of-year 5k race, and he wants her to run with him. "Sure!" she said, as mamas do, and then realized she needed to become runnerly enough to complete a 5k. What a good mama, I said, nodding encouragingly. Her plan was to train through the winter and spring and then sign up for her own 5k so that she'd be ready to run with her son. Isn't she fantastic? Yes, you're nodding. Because she is! And then she asked me to run that spring 5k with her and also train for it, so we could motivate each other.

Record scratch, right there. I didn't own a running bra. And winter is cold and I really hate being outside in the cold. I'm a delicate flower.

Hmm. Spring came quickly, as it does, and I surprised nobody more than myself when I began running regularly. We're following the Couch to 5K training program. We're running a 5k together in the middle of June, she and I, and I'll be ready. This is how serious it is: the lovely husband is in Atlanta but today's a scheduled running day for me, so I worked from home just so that I could run at lunchtime. Crazy, right? Who am I?

I'm a runner, maybe.

I have tried off and on in the past seven years to make parenthood and career and fitness all fit together, with poor results. But I've never had a youngest child three-year-old before, and it's possible that life is getting just a tiny bit logistically easier. Or even if that's not true at all, it is true that I get to sleep through the night with fewer interruptions. (Good sleep definitely helps with running!) The hard part, as always, isn't ever the very top priorities, it's the everything else. It is a truth that I have very little free time. First I cheated on you here by taking up sewing. And now I'm stepping out on you to go running, too. I know I've been around this space a little less than usual, and now you know why.

The last time I ran a 5k was in high school. In 1993. Now I'm running one on June 16th. You'll cheer me on, right?

Consider the bull

noreply@blogger.com (Robin (noteverstill/noteversewing)) — Fri, 03 May 2013 23:07:00 +0000

On Tuesday I took most of the day off from work to take my sweet L to a parent+child blogging event. She's the perfect age for such an outing: young enough that I don't have to pull her out of school; old enough that I don't worry about disrupting her nap schedule. And of the three kids, she's by far the most easygoing and outgoing. I can take her into a crowd of strangers and leave her to play with other kids while I go hear the presentation for the parents and she'll be happy.

Plus, sometimes it's nice to have a little one-on-one time with each of my funny monkeys. And that girl L, she is wildly funny.

We began the day as any other, driving to my work so we could drop her brother off at daycare, and then we continued on and drove through DC into Virginia (the event was put on by PBS and was at their headquarters). We had so much fun and my girl was taking every advantage of being alone with me, and I let her. She never stopped talking, except to eat cookies and raspberries. She asked a million gazbillion questions. And she wanted control over the rest of the day.

Before we go back, can we go out to lunch? Yes.

Can we sit at the counter? Yes.

And then can we get ice cream? Yes.

When we go back, can we park in the satellite lot and walk through the woods? Yes.

Can we go see the bull now?

L has been attending the daycare in my building at work since she was four months old, which means that just this week she passed her five-year anniversary. So twice a weekday, every weekday, for five years, that girl has been in the backseat observing the path of our commute. At the last intersection before we get to work and school, we pass a crumbling, decrepit shopping plaza. It's pretty rundown but has its merits: the 7-11 has a Redbox machine, and the Hispanic-oriented grocery store has an amazing array of both piñatas and spices.

It also has this seedy, sticky, scary restaurant called The Golden Bull. I've eaten there once. It was all unwashed men playing compulsive Keno, stale nicotene cloud cover, and soggy grilled cheese. Don't disrespect the grilled cheese, please. That was eight years ago and I haven't been back.

But The Golden Bull has an enormous golden bull on its roof and for years, L has been asking to go to the place with the bull. When I told her it was so yucky and she'd never want to eat there, she explained she just wanted to see the bull, not the restaurant. And it's been a standing request, but the thing about commuting is you're always trying to get somewhere, and we've never taken the time for my daydreamiest child to contemplate a rooftop fiberglass farm animal.

So we went on Tuesday, and naturally it was the capstone of the day. Untoppable and unbeatable. Childhood: won.

She was so happy.

Consider the bull. What's the thing right in front of you that would make you so happy that you're not doing? I've thought of two,
and I'm going to do one of them this weekend. You can learn a lot from five-year-olds when you look at things from their perspectives.

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Atmospheric pressure

noreply@blogger.com (Robin (noteverstill/noteversewing)) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 03:06:00 +0000

We'd been enjoying a brief snap of perfect weather and Friday evening we drove home with all of the car windows wide open. Those two imps in my back seat, L and G, they yelled loudly out the window to every car idling beside us in our fourteen-mile commute of stop-and-go traffic. And because the spell of weather was so unusually perfect and guaranteed to be brief, every other car had all its windows open, too. My littles made a lot of friends.

We pulled into the first spot at a particularly long red light as a thrumming jeep pulled into the turn lane alongside us. A siren with waist-length dreads wrapped in a festive scarf swayed in her driver's seat to the low Caribbean beat pumping sonorously from her speakers. My kids did their thing, getting her attention, and she was awakened with a new energy. L was the closer kid to her. "Can you dance, little white girl?" the woman asked, pointing a lacquered fuchsia nail in the direction of my rear window.

My girl, she rose to the occasion, busting a move and another and another, letting seatbelts tear no enthusiam asunder. And my boy, having no idea what what happening but living to play with his sister, followed with an even more erratic choreography. The woman was laughing wildly and waving her arms above her head. She turned the knob on her dashboard and the thrum from her car rose to a sonic boom of inter-vehicular communing. The driver of the car on my other side noticed our party, beeped once in appreciation, and raised the roof for a quick beat. And I just sat there laughing, wondering at the joy of music, good weather, and the universal freedom of the 6pm hour on a Friday.

Today is a Monday and it was a rainy one at that. We had no windows down, we made no new friends, we didn't dance in our chairs. It can't be avoided: some days are Fridays and some days are Mondays. But tomorrow:

tomorrow is a Tuesday, and anything can happen on a Tuesday.

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The three and then the nine

noreply@blogger.com (Robin (noteverstill/noteversewing)) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 22:37:00 +0000

We feted the lovely husband this week, with a nice soft cake that wouldn't be difficult to eat, some beautiful homemade gifts assembled with the very best love and scotch tape, and of course candles and singing.

When you look through the world through kids' eyes, life can so easily be perfect. A birthday is a formula. Cake + candles + presents + singing = happiness. It equals an ordered universe. This is what is and should be. They know nothing of how hard the past few weeks have been in the news, in our work responsibilities, in travel and juggling and unanticipated major home repairs and dental bills. They know hugs. They know making wishes.

We know more, of course, and as such birthdays make me feel quiet. We have known friends and strangers in newspaper headlines who will never see this age. We know about ailments and finance and how a work trip is even longer for both the traveler and the spouse-parent left behind when sequestration inhibits the steady flow of airport traffic. We know, I think, that every birthday is equal parts joyous and somber. Another year is a privilege not to be taken lightly.

Every year we age we learn more clearly that there is no ordered universe, there is only the small orders we can make around ourselves in tidy tiny nests.

I know very little, but I will tell you this thing I know for sure: that lovely husband of mine is quite the man. He is industrious, brilliant, calm, steady, strong, witty, gentle and kind. And also blue-eyed, dimpled, and has all his hair. Considering, based on their first attempt at candle placement, that two of our kids think he just turned 93 years old, that is no small thing.

Birthdays aren't really a math lesson, despite the focus they often cast on numbers. They're a homily, a cautionary tale reminding us to appreciate what we have and celebrate that which is worth celebrating, the picayune and the momentous. And so, this week, we did.

(Happy, happy birthday, Lovely Husband. You're the best.)

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Autocracy

noreply@blogger.com (Robin (noteverstill/noteversewing)) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 03:52:00 +0000

Tomorrow is school pictures day, which first of all is a racket because it happens twice a year, not yearly like when I was little, and you and I both know I will buy those awesome-awkward pictures every time. There is exactly one photo album I update diligently in our house, and it's the dedicated school pictures album. The great thing about having enrolled all the kids in daycare at three or four months old is that they won't have had to wait until they turn five to experience the wonder that is school photos. Nope, theirs date back to their infancies. In E's first school picture, she was so young that she didn't know how to sit up yet. One of her teachers lay on the floor under the prop carpet and squeezed E upright between her knees. How can you not cherish that nonsense? Flipping those pages and watching their cherubic faces grow amidst the fake flower field backdrops, that's good stuff.

So tomorrow is school pictures at daycare, which second of all is fantastic because they'll do individual shots as well as a posed sibling situation in which the awkward-awesome is magnified exponentially. Those photos are even more wonderful to me than the individual shots. For two years, all three kids were in daycare together, and the four three-kid school photos we have, well, they could blind you with all that awkward-awesome. Just be careful when you open the album, is all I'm saying.

One of the saddest days of my life was when E had left for kindergarten and L&G went off to school pictures day without her. But one of the greatest days was a few months later, when E's teachers had their spring professional development day on the same exact day that L&G had school pictures day. Oh, yes, I did bring E right back to daycare and stick her in a fully-populated siblings school picture. There were plastic flowers in addition to a canvas backdrop that year. Sweet mercy.

In the grand scheme of things, there is much I don't fuss over. One of the ways I get us out the door each morning while keeping a fingerhold on my sanity is by not caring what clothes the kids wear each day. They are responsible for picking their own clothes and I will only make weather-related changes to their choices.

There are exactly five categorical exceptions to this rule: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, weddings and funerals, bar and bat mitzvahs, and school pictures day. Truth.

I never put them in matching outfits but I do like their clothes to complement each other's attire. So tomorrow Mr. G is wearing some blue-and-white seersucker pants and a heathered blue polo. Lady L is wearing a navy-and-white chevron shirt with neon pink jeans.

And I will confess to you that a small part of the pleasure of the ritual is their scheduled indignation over the temporary loss of wardrobe autonomy. I will make you cute and you will like it. You will remember Mama's favorite teaching, that God is in the details; and Daddy's, that if Mama's not happy, then nobody's happy.

They will pout: why? And I almost never answer this way but it's part of the ritual, so tomorrow morning I will say:

Because I'm the Mama. And I said so.

And on Wednesday, you will undoubtedly find them again in pajama pants and rainbow capes.

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Sacred space

noreply@blogger.com (Robin (noteverstill/noteversewing)) — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 04:19:00 +0000

This is a man-made lake a few miles from my office. I went there for some lunch hour serenity now earlier this week.

Everything that wasn't essential this week didn't get attention. (Nothing written here? Sorry.) Morning coffee - essential. Hot coffee? No, it turns out. Every night this week I brewed two cups in a pyrex measuring cup, waited for it to cool as I packed lunches, and poured it in a thermos and stashed it in the fridge. Every morning this week I left the house with a thermos of delicious ice cold coffee, and it turned out to be healthful, as leaving the house with a thermos dramatically increased how much water I drank each day. It turns out I will drink much more water from a receptacle than a water fountain. Every six months or so I relearn this.

The toothless husband has been travelling all week for work. I took three kids downtown to the National Gallery on Sunday for a field trip with E's Daisies troop. I took three kids to two kids' hair cuts. I took three kids to one kid's swim lesson. We traveled together this week, all the kids and I, because there was no option to divide and conquer. That's how it goes.

We addressed springtime preschool traditions this week: we got Crazy Hat Day and Crazy Hair Day and Pajama Day. We remembered show-and-tell on Monday and soccer-worthy shoes on Thursday even though soccer is usually on Friday but was moved for a puppet show. We finished math homework and book club reading and planned out our needs for E's school's upcoming Spirit Week, including Dress Like Your Favorite Animal Day.

Apparently I'm sewing a peacock dress. I can totally do that, right? I'm seeing a blue and purple bustle...

I have dropped off three kids at two schools and traversed the Beltway and been on time to work every day this week. Sometimes on my single-momming days I think: if I can just get to work on time, everything will be okay. It's either a very meager goal or a foundation for setting the day's tone. You decide because I don't have time to think about it. But I was on time to work every day this week, which is good because I left early every day this week, because that's the only way to pick up three kids from two schools by the time they're expected to be collected. And so it goes.

Tomorrow is the end: of the work week, the school week, the single-parenting week, and the lovely husband will return, the kids will clamor all over him, forgetting entirely that I remembered Friday's soccer shoes on Thursday. As they should. I don't want accolades, just for their childhoods to be unimpeded by our adult bumps in the road; work travel or a heart-heavy news cycle or Mama's wish for typing time competing with Mama's need for building in extra sleeping time because one kid has been having nightmares and one kid needed a middle-of-the-night bedsheets change and the third kid, whichever that may be, will always wake up from the cries of one of the first two. It makes me smile, though, even at 2am, the way they have sonar like dolphins. When one's in distress they all three seem to be, and though they manage to magnify my every sensation of incompetence with that special talent of theirs, still, they're a pack. They stick together.

These weeks are hard. They get easier in the sense that nobody's a newborn anymore, and harder in the sense that we have field trips and swim lessons and socio-geographic commitments that never existed when they were little.

I caution myself to appreciate the craziness, not to let these weeks go by in a blur. I don't want their accolades for remembering Friday soccer shoes on Thursday, but I want to remember to award them to myself. Another week in the books, and well enough done. You many know that one of my favorite quotations is "God is in the details," and this week was a careful walk on holy ground.

But maybe that's not just about my single-parenting tribulations so much as...parenting. And on we go.

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Oy, what a shande. I should never buy gribbenes from a mohel. It's so chewy.**

noreply@blogger.com (Robin (noteverstill/noteversewing)) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:44:00 +0000

In perhaps not my best ever parenting move, I introduced my kids to the movie Mrs. Doubtfire. They love it, of course, and since most of its their-age-inappropriateness isn't presented visually but rather occurs within the dialogue, they haven't completely caught on to just how much I shouldn't have shown them this film.

Here's what happened: they love the movie Matilda, based on the Roald Dahl book, and the same actress who plays Matilda also plays one of the daughters in Mrs. Doubtfire and when my girls mentioned how much they like her, I said, "oh...you know what else she's in?" And here's what else happened: I really, really love Robin Williams. So I just remembered Mrs. Doubtfire as very funny, not as completely deserving of its PG-13 rating. Oops.

But as they watch the movie repeatedly over time, some of the double entendres do begin to capture their attention. We have an open-question policy, though, and a pause button. So whatever they want to ask is askable. We'll discuss. From this movie alone we've had conversations about pubic hair, divorce, fake teeth, peer pressure, plastic surgery, food allergies, drunkenness, and kindness.

I keep seeing this on Facebook:

and I like this, and I work hard to practice this.The best of them, though, their greatest earnestness, usually comes not out of what they say but what they ask. And I have to have the perfect combination of patience and courage to answer all their questions. It's not easy, but so far, so good. They're still willing to talk about anything. And so we go forward, with transparency and honesty and a little more mindfulness about movie ratings.

**May I translate the Yiddish words for you? "Oy, what a tragedy. I should never buy fried chicken skin from the man who performs babies' ritual circumcisions. It's so chewy." Spoken by Williams' character Daniel as his brother experiments with how old and ethnic to make him look in his nanny costume.

PS: The movie Mrs. Doubtfire is 20 years old. Thought you should know.

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This post was inspired by the novel Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton. After witnessing her children's school set ablaze, Grace attempts to find the arson as her teenage daughter lies in a coma in Lupton's suspense thriller. Join From Left to Write on April 11 as we discuss Afterwards. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

It happens to be a beautiful novel about how a mother communicates with her child, but you should know that the reason I wrote this post is that Afterwards is set in England and one of the characters uses the endearment "poppet," as does my beloved Mrs. Doubtfire.

In your face

noreply@blogger.com (Robin (noteverstill/noteversewing)) — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 03:57:00 +0000

We had a very exciting weekend of the not-in-a-good-way variety. The lovely husband isn't looking quite as lovely as usual right now. He plays ~~rugby~~ ~~hockey~~ ~~squash~~ softball most Sundays, and on this fine occasion he caught a ball with his mouth.

He lost one tooth on impact, had two more line up in a diagonal rather than horizontal formation across the front of his smile, and fractured another one above the gum line. So far, he's seen two dentists, his general practitioner and a radiologist (his jaw isn't broken, huzzah!). Tomorrow he sees a periodontist who will likely pull the fractured tooth, and on Wednesday he sees an orthodontist who will determine how to handle the diagonal guys. They might get pulled, too. So he'll be looking a little jack-o-lantern-y for a while.

The swelling has gone down considerably in the 36 hours since ~~his face changed forever~~ impact, and poor guy is going to have a lot more time in the dental chair this year before his new bionic smile is implanted completely, but he will ultimately be just fine, and reaching that determination (thank goodness for good health insurance) is quite a relief. Even while we were awaiting that determination to be reached, though, we had to manage the fears of our highly visual and visceral children, as well as keep their rambunctiousness away from their daddy's tender head.

So never mind that he came home from softball looking like a bloody pulp. We focused on the contexts that they understand, and in their world, only one thing happens when you lose a tooth: you ~~count your copays~~ eagerly anticipate a visit from the Tooth Fairy.

The Tooth Fairy pulled each of the girls' tooth pillows into the hallway. She left them a note that thanked them for taking care of their daddy. She asked for their help: since their daddy doesn't have a tooth pillow, could they deliver these books for him to enjoy while he recuperates on her behalf? (The Tooth Fairy's minion hit up a book store between birthday party drop-offs yesterday.) To thank them for their trouble, they each had a dollar waiting in their pillows to keep for themselves. And the note said that the Tooth Fairy had taken the time to sprinkle lots of fairy dust at their daddy's dentist's office, so he'd be well cared for as he ~~faces demolition and reconstruction~~ heals.

Normal, right? Lose a tooth, get a visit from the Tooth Fairy. Even if you're 38 years old. And then the girls were much less fearful about this experience. It has not, however, helped their brother to be any less rambunctious. Magic has its limits, you know.

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Raising the brony right

noreply@blogger.com (Robin (noteverstill/noteversewing)) — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 23:19:00 +0000

I need to get my purple horsie, G yells most nights before bed. It's purple! It's my favorite! He doesn't know that it's a My Little Pony horsie. He just loves purple, so he loves this horsie.

Nonetheless, he's become a bit of a brony.

Fighting gender stereotypes is a very different experience parenting G from what it has been in regard to the girls. With them I worried about them learning to be assertive and about using their bodies physically. Girls don't have to demure or sit meekly or wear frilly dresses. We've done well with the girls, I think.

Now here's our sweet boy, younger brother to two girls whom he admires more than anyone else on the planet. And so his favorite color is purple. He will tell you he wants to grow up to be a princess and he loves wearing his sisters' princessy dress-up clothes. He has purple nail polish on his fingers and toes because they were doing their nails and he asked that they paint his, too.

None of that bothers me at all, for the record. I think those preferences are indicative of his great love for his sisters. And to round out the picture he also calls himself a superhero and likes to tell us how strong he is. He is a superhero wearing pink pull-ups, because we have leftover pink ones from his sisters who no longer need them, and he prefers the pink to his own blue. He's a very strong superhero in pink undergarments. Got a problem with that?

I'm coming to believe that there's an under-discussed (not ubiquitous, but) common love of all things sparkly and glamorous amongst the preschool boy set that is nearly equal to the accepted-as-fact same love amongst the preschool girl set. A certain seven-year-old male friend of E's spent most of his early years in a yellow tutu and purple butterfly wings. There's a boy at daycare who beelines to the dress-up corner for the golden fairy costume every morning. And why not? Little kids are hedonists and all that sparkle and frill and silk is sensuous. The boys get bigger and one day each realize that the world lumps those nice things under a "girly" label. But before they care what the world thinks, they don't care themselves, either. And there's just nothing about playing prince that's as appealing as playing princess, is there?

So here's where all the gender equality parenting is hitting a snag:

G watches his girls change their sparkly earrings every day, and every day tells us that he wants earrings in his own ears. He asks plaintively, can I get earrings? And all I have to say to him is not yet.

Now, I can't imagine agreeing to pierce the ears of a three-year-old child of any gender. There's a measure of pain the child has to understand rationally and ask to undergo, and I don't think any kid G's age can make such an assessment. And I don't think he'll still be asking when he's five but I have been thinking and thinking about pierced ears and while I would say philosophically that I love knocking down gender-based norms, I've run headfirst into this one and can't get myself to disagree with it. And that's irritating me about myself. If his future five-year-old self wants earrings, that age at which I opened the discussion for both girls, I can't imagine being able to agree to take him.

What do you think? And did you have a sparkle-loving boy?

PS: I'm pretty sure that if G pierces his ears as a teen it won't phase me. But why can little girls have pierced ears and dresses and not boys? Even though I wouldn't agree to get his ears pierced at this time, why are those norms still there and why do I care more than I thought?

The casts of characters we assemble

noreply@blogger.com (Robin (noteverstill/noteversewing)) — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 05:00:00 +0000

The maple tree in the back yard closest to our dining room has a smooth knot at its base. It's a fairy door, E is convinced, and sometimes she stares at it longingly. She is so sad that our back yard's fairies haven't recognized her as an ally and confidante. She wants so badly for them to trust in her and show themselves.

There is a neighbor girl, a 2nd grader, who lives around the corner. She has a 4th grade brother and the loveliest parents. We pass their house every time we go to the playground and it has become near-ritual to knock on their door and see if they want to come. This girl, she has a name and it's not hard to pronounce. But G, who loves her, won't say it. He runs into her arm for hugs every time he sees her, and even though she spends most of her time swinging and climbing with his big sisters, she often holds G's hand for the walk home. We say goodbye and for days he laments her departure. I just want to see my friend. The girl. He calls for her day in and day out, talking to her in her absence, and then the weekend comes and it's scooter-to-the-playground time and they joyfully reunite.

L has a loose tooth. She will likely lose her first tooth within a week or so. So she's begun talking to the Tooth Fairy.

And then there's my sister. I don't have a sister, but when I was four my mother had a terrible miscarriage and had that baby been born at term, she would have been my sister, and just once, probably decades ago, my mom told me the name they had picked for her and once, just once, probably two years ago, I told this story to E when she first heard of miscarriages and had trouble understanding them. And now she talks to my sister, not unlike how she talks to God.

I talk to characters from my favorite works of fiction. They inhabit me, the characters that most affect me, and become real in my mind. They are touchstones and great listeners and exquisite advice givers, and never mind that their words were written by a ghost somewhere, some author, it's these characters who speak to me. And I always (inside my head) answer back. Just today I tried to quote both Francie and Ella to my E about how to select a library book. They had good systems, both those girls, and I wanted to offer up their ideas.

We spent about an hour in the library today, just she and I, a rare mama/just-one-child outing between the carpool lane after school and swim lesson. It might be a weekly thing. And she sat there, studying the shelves, heavily contemplating the many choices, and I came to the conviction that our friends and confidantes just don't all have to be visible and corporal. They can be around the corner for a little boy too young to cross the street or dial a phone. They can be sketches in our minds interpreting someone else's words. They can be creatures unseen or never-were. They all still offer support and affirm our very selves.

What do you think? Who's in the non-conventional section of your cast of characters?

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And unrelated, two pieces of random tonight:

Do you know any tongue-twisters? I'm asking for E, who is having a fascination. We have the woodchuck and Peter Piper and the sea shells by the sea shore. What else have you got?

Also, a thing I have to do. If you've been reading your favorite blogs through Google Reader, you know it's about to be phased out and disappear forever. Right now I'm looking at the choice between Bloglovin, Feedly and The Old Reader, but popular opinion seems to be heading toward Bloglovin. And I need to post this link to "claim" my blog on their platform, and so I am:

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

If none of that made sense to you, you're extra cool for being here. xo

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Get wet

noreply@blogger.com (Robin (noteverstill/noteversewing)) — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 23:00:00 +0000

This is my biggest girl, yesterday, in the pool with her new swim instructor (fittingly named Ariel):

This was a big day, yesterday, the Getting in the Pool. My sweet E, she of the long ear surgery history, for so long she couldn't get water in her ears. She being the girl she is, she became terrified of getting her ears wet at all. She became terrified of swimming.

We tried lessons with an already-trusted babysitter who also happens to be a certified swim instructor. We tried letting her camp give her swim lessons (but that just made her dislike that camp). We tried patience. We tried waiting. But the fear never abated; instead it magnified.

Yesterday's lesson began with much difficulty, and ultimately I had to lift her into Ariel's arms who simply carried her into the water until she was wet. But by the end of 30 minutes my brave E was dunking underneath the surface. DUNKING UNDERNEATH THE SURFACE. She came out from the pool shaking, with adrenaline probably, and fear and relief and disbelief and maybe a little pride and a whole new dose of fear and realization, and also whispering, barely audibly, she's good. She's good. We found the right teacher.

And then came last night, when the adrenaline wore off, the fear refreshed itself, the enormity of what she'd done and what therefore she'd be expected again to do, hunger, exhaustion, all boiled together, my sweet, brave girl began to scream. Oh, did she let it all out. And most of it was yelled at me.

It wasn't just the swim. It was how I misunderstood her yesterday, a moment where I embarrassed her, how she wants Passover to be over so she can eat her favorite cheese and crackers, how I've wronged her and wronged her and nobody understands her. I held her as she sobbed.

When I could capture her gaze I said, "I respect so much how you told me all the ways I've upset you. I want you always to be able to tell me anything, even the bad stuff. So let's talk about all of it. But is it possible you can tell me all these things by just talking instead of yelling at me?"

And she began to scream again. NO! she insisted. And I held her as she yelled at me some more. The only person she can tell the bad things to is me, she said, and the only way to get them out is by screaming. So I have to let her scream at me, she told me.

I agreed immediately. I don't want her to feel she can only talk to me, but it's better than talking to nobody, which was always my childhood coping method of choice. And I wish she didn't scream at me, as it's really hard to absorb, but I'd rather she batter me with those words than try to swallow them herself. "So yell it out," I encouraged. And I steeled myself to withstand it.

And I know that feeling where it all can only come out through a scream or a moan (or fingertips to keyboard), don't you?

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I was talking with a friend today (hi, friend!) who is at the very beginning of pursuit of an amazing goal. I could not stop gushing over her, so well-suited is she to this goal and how proud I am of her for taking these first steps. "But why aren't you shouting this from the rooftops?" I asked her. And she can't yet. She's not ready to be publicly brave about this dream. I understand. It's so hard to say "This is what I want, World. This is what I can't yet do. But this is what I'm going to conquer." But the thing is, it shouldn't be hard for her to say those words, because I know that she can do this. Just as I know that my E will learn to swim just as soon as she's ready.

Ladies of my heart, I believe in you.

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All of which made me think about me. I can full-fledged believe in my friend and my daughter, with conviction and without hesitation. But they each are having a bit of trouble believing in themselves. And I have trouble believing in myself. I have to treat myself no differently than my daughter. I have to recognize that I am my own biggest impediment and I have to coach myself to become my own biggest cheerleader. It's what I'm working on this season. It's time.

Maybe it's provident that E began her swim lessons in the middle of Passover. In practicum, we began this week because this is when the new session of lessons began, but as I'm overrun this week with redemption and renewal metaphors, I think they're all pieces that fit well together. The liminal space between the vastnesses of slavery and freedom was just a body of water. Standing at the edge of dry land with danger behind and the unknown ahead, maybe that doesn't describe our thousands-year-old story any less well than a girl with a fear to conquer. Freedom requires some bravery.

And the willingness to get wet.

Nuclear family Passover

noreply@blogger.com (Robin (noteverstill/noteversewing)) — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 03:29:00 +0000

We've long held a tradition of nuclear family Thanksgiving, and I cherish it. I always wonder: should I? I have this sensation of looking over my shoulder. Should there be guilt? Are we doing it wrong? We don't invite anyone over. We don't have family dacamping on couches and air mattresses. Is this even American? But I can't help it: I love our five-person Thanksgivings. There's nobody I'd rather spend time with than my family.

That Passover was coming this year was no surprise, as the calendar regularly unfolds at its slow and steady pace, but it left us foundering. For the past several years we've alternated going to my parents' or the lovely husband's, and it would have been his family's turn, but so soon after the loss of his grandmother it felt like too foreign a terrain. We opted to stay home, but found ourselves without a local Passover custom.

We could have made big Seders ourselves. We could have accepted any of several wonderful invitations (and we did go to friends for one night, ultimately, after much back-and-forthing). But in the end we did what we do best: we relied on ourselves, our family of five, and made ourselves one fantastic nuclear family Passover.

If you're not familiar with the Passover seder than this all might look quite strange without context, and in truth, even with context, this isn't the most traditional way of doing things. I got party-store shot glasses to help the kids count the ritual four cups of wine (grape juice). We raised a blue streamer curtain between the kitchen and the dining room and split the Red Sea ever time we walked betwixt and between, and maybe there was a 'round-the-house parade through the sea from slavery into freedom.

Those ten plagues we're supposed to remember: we threw red confetti at each other for blood and jumping frogs climbed all over the dining room table and circular stickers covered us in rainbow boils and oh yes, plastic locusts. Sunglasses for darkness and plastic fans in the print patterns of wild beasts and a story book in lieu of some of the drier text at the end of the night, the kids were yelling best Passover ever! and if it wasn't maybe the paragon of tradition, we fulfilled the spirit of the night, retelling and remembering the story, and my wild, streamer-covered kids, they loved it.

And feeling triumphant at the success of the night, that we made a nuclear family celebration of what's so often done communally feel like the best possible decision, the lovely husband smiled. "You know," he said, "this kind of seder would travel well. You could pack this all up and bring it on the road with us."

So maybe next year we will. Or maybe we won't, knowing how great the holiday can be as just us, in our own exuberant ways. It's good either way, because this year I felt like we chose between no good choices, and next year we'll choose between two good ones.

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Not perfect

noreply@blogger.com (Robin (noteverstill/noteversewing)) — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 21:56:00 +0000

The days have been flowing like a burst valve, all velocity and oxygen and pools forming unrestrained. There have been incoming-kindergartner parties and book club meetings and special nights out for kids and parents alike. I haven't seen a quiet evening in forever, and although I love this heady raucous leap into spring, I miss typing to you.

And there are Passover preparations, which no dam of orderliness or reason could ever contain. We're staying at home for Passover for the first time in forever, as the lovely husband wasn't ready to face time in the city of his childhood just yet, with his grandmother so freshly gone. So we're building a new tradition. New can be good. New can be a little unsteady. The spray is everywhere but I have high hopes for this holiday.

Sweet G has taken to declining anything that doesn't suit him by describing it as not perfect. He asks for a strawberry and you hand him one and being three, he wants the other one, no matter which one you offered, you know this game, yes? He wants the other one, every time. So he says to you: No, I can't have this one. It isn't perfect for me.

I am so taken with this phrase (and its speaker, of course). There was nothing wrong with that other strawberry (or crayon or blue shirt); it's just that he's made a determination and now only precisely his dream of the moment will do. There is no good enough, there is only perfection or nothing at all.

The important part, to me, is not in the strawberry he does choose but in the one he rejects. It's good, fine, even. I'll eat it, and I do. This cold snap at the onset of spring isn't perfect, but the cherry trees are blossoming. Staying home despite my personal preferences isn't perfect, my every other member of my family is excited to make the holiday here and so I will be excited, too. Being too busy to write isn't perfect when I remember how much I miss writing and ache for that quiet time in which to do it, but a happy, bustling, event-filled calendar? It's not perfect. But it's very, very good.

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Out of sight

noreply@blogger.com (Robin (noteverstill/noteversewing)) — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 03:51:00 +0000

Telling people today that I grew up four blocks from the Canadian border is an item of trivia, but as a kid that was just home. Where Niagara Falls fall down and form a lower river, carving a gorge that leads after several miles to Lake Ontario, I grew up in the shadow of tourism on a beautiful river bank.

Some two miles south were the famous postcard views but at the end of my street was the state park that formed the top of the gorge. I spent so many hours there, the equivalent, I'm sure, of whole weeks of my life. Sometimes we stayed at the top of the gorge, walking along the trails. Often we took the foot paths down to the river's edge, climbing down hundreds of feet to the bluest water, freshly churned from its ride down the famous ledge.

View Larger Map

There was another way, though, and it's the one that was the most physically challenging, the one I can find no official information for, the one I took least and loved best, the one that felt riskiest. People are allowed at the top of the gorge and people are allowed at the bottom of the gorge, but what about on the vertical cliffs between top and bottom?

There was this spot (I'm sure I could still find it today) where if you hopped the protective railing at the top of the gorge, hopped down a boulder under a bush, carefully not looking at the vista that made it look like you'd fall straight into the river, where a steep zig-zagged dirt path led to a set of steel cables anchored into the escarpment.

I'm not sure if it's really called rapelling if you climb down with no safety ropes or gloves or harnesses or helmets but we would squeeze those cables, lean back just enough to find the next foothold with our feet, and descend vertically into the gorge. Sometimes, if we were feeling terribly energetic, we'd use those cables to climb back up. Most of the time we needed to find the stone steps. It's more than 400 steps up, curvy, angled, eroded stone steps, but that was the easier path.

And you knew you were allowed at the top and you knew you were allowed at the bottom but there are no signs, not even warnings, about the steel cables. You knew you weren't supposed to be on those cables. They don't officially exist, and sometimes they're cut away, pins and bolts and no cables. And then somehow, the cables show up again. To find them, you just have to jump over the railing at the edge of a cliff.

I think about that space, liminal in access, permission, memory. Those cables thrilled me, challenged me, terrified and exhilarated me. They were probably illegal to climb and inherently bore an element of risk (although any climb down the gorge does) and they tested me. They were so important to my sense of self and ability and trust and confidence. They taught self-reliance and -confidence and adventure and trusting my instincts, not based on posted rules established on a median sense of ability but on carefully considering for myself what could or could not be done.

Lessons like those have to be learned a little out of sight sometimes.

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This post was inspired by Raising Cubby: A Father and Son’s Adventures with Asperger’s, Trains, Tractors, and High Explosives by John Elder Robison, who encouraged his son to be an explorer. Join From Left to Write on March 12 as we discuss Raising Cubby. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

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In truths that she learned, or times that (s)he cried

noreply@blogger.com (Robin (noteverstill/noteversewing)) — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 03:52:00 +0000

Today was the final Club competition, the culmination of the season that's been so important to my sweet E (and her rising kindergartner sister, too, who is raring to participate). We climbed high in the bleachers, held aloft a video camera, cheered our hearts out. She disappeared behind a curtain, emerged shaking pom-poms and executing choreography, sweetly serious and exuberantly disciplined.

The MC talked about team competition and mind development and confidence building. Coordination, school pride, community. She could have been speaking directly to us. For my girl, it's been all of those things. It's built her body confidence and motivated her to learn things that scared her before, like cartwheels. Now she's like a purple windmill twirling all over the yard.

One year ago when she was a sweet kindergartner herself we didn't know much about the Club but some friends suggested we go to the final Club competition. It's just lots of fun school spirit, they said. Not even really knowing what we were going to, we went to the competition and it was on that day that E determined she'd participate in first grade.

I only saw the first half of last year's competition. I left early, a bundle of nerves and excitement. I was enrolled that day in my first sewing class.

So much can happen in a year.

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Eaters gotta eat {a giveaway for you}

noreply@blogger.com (Robin (noteverstill/noteversewing)) — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 04:53:00 +0000

We're going to deviate from our usual format tonight because the lovely people at your neighborhood Safeway want me to give you some grocery money. That's worth a format deviation, right? But first, a story:

My favorite time to go grocery shopping is around 11pm. The whole day has been otherwise concluded, the kids are asleep, the lovely husband is on his laptop or packing lunches and boom: we're out of strawberries. I love this.

I have a work friend who goes to do his grocery shopping at 6am every Saturday. He's in, he's out, he's awake with the sun but before the town, and he's gotten his shopping out of the way and has his whole weekend ahead of him. You might surmise (correctly) that he's quite the morning person. You might surmise (correctly) that I'm more of a night owl.

When you go grocery shopping at 11pm, the store is quiet and cheerful. Staff, otherwise bored, are happy to help you. They will fetch fresher produce from the back and milk with a later expiration date. The cheese counter guy, there late for inventory, offers some brie to try, and this smoked gouda, and maybe you need a little more brie before you go? And best of all: there are no lines at checkout.

If I go to the grocery store after work, I have littles with me or I'm hurrying to get home. If I go after they're asleep, my thoughts are my own and I can concentrate on price comparison or ingredient lists or important things like finding the perfect shade of bright pink lip gloss for spring. I know you understand.

I'm a woman alone with my grocery list and a brie-laden cracker. You should try it sometime.

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So here's the giveaway. Safeway wants me to tell you (no, remind you, because you already know this, right?) about the Safeway Rewards program. And they'd like me to give one of you a $50 Safeway gift card. Brie, anyone?

I buy gas at Exxon all the time. Whatever phone number you use for your loyalty card is the same thing you use at the gas station. You put your number in and the gas price drops right at the pump. So just for doing the weekly grocery shopping that we'd do anyway, I usually save 30 or 40 cents per gallon on filling my gas tank. YOU SHOULD BE DOING THIS.

Do you want $50 to spend at Safeway?

:: Leave me a comment telling me what time of day you prefer as grocery shopping time.

:: You can follow @Safeway on Twitter and leave a second comment telling me you've done so.

:: You can leave an additional comment if you follow me on Twitter, too.

And if you want to know more about Safeway Rewards and other information, you can find Safeway on Facebook.

That's it! I'll pick a winner via random.org one week from tonight (3/16) before I go to bed. Good luck!

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Disclosure: this post was sponsored by Safeway. You know I almost never do giveaways, but Safeway gave me some grocery money and wants to give you some, too. And I want you to enjoy some underwritten grocery aisle solitude bliss!

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SMILE.

noreply@blogger.com (Robin (noteverstill/noteversewing)) — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 22:20:00 +0000

My oldest girl had a tough day yesterday. I just had a terrible day! were first words when I picked her up. Terrible!

A thing had happened, and then another thing. Neither of them was really significant by the time we talked although they had felt so in the moment, but as it was my sweet E found herself feeling sad. She had made the self-determination, though, that she had cried and would not cry in school again. She was reaching for her emotional equilibrium. She was trying to pull it together, and she was proud of herself for the effort.

My sweet, anxious, sensitive girl. You know that's so accomplished of her, right? She considered her feelings in an objective way and made a decision to course-correct. She's come a long way, baby. She had decided the thing and the other thing could be thought about more at home, later, but that she was going to find her composure to comport herself as any other thing-unburdened classmate was doing.

And then.

Someone -- an adult -- an authority figure -- looked at inward-turned E's face and said, "Smile, E." She lost her hold on her precarious composure. She dissolved into tears.

Telling me later, she said that she was embarrassed. She had been trying so hard to look no-longer-sad. She had been trying to behave just like anyone else, to let the attention find its way away from her, to be not the girl everyone was watching. And this person brought all the attention back to her.

She felt ashamed, she said. She had thought she was achieving that elusive equilibrium and for an adult to call out the sadness on her face meant that she had not been succeeding after all. She felt a failure.

And then she felt angry -- at the adult, for embarrassing her, and at herself, for all of it. She just wanted to be not-the-kid-who-wears-all-her-emotions-on-her-face. She wanted everything to be simple, and safe, and nothing felt simple. Nothing felt safe.

It's been a long time since I've been told to smile but I remember that happening a lot when I was little. I always had the same reactions, some mix dependent on the specifics of the circumstance of shame, embarrassment and anger.

As I got bigger, those comments led me to believe that my face in its natural state is angry-looking, or ugly.

In college, I came to associate being told to smile with the patriarchy. Men want to control women's appearance and behavior. Women are more socially acceptable when they're cheerful.

In recent years, I haven't thought about it at all. That's interesting, because I have actually become happier as I have aged, so maybe I do just naturally smile more. But also, it's important to consider that 36-year-old women just don't draw (as much) attention as 20-year-old women. It's a feeling I'd forgotten, being commanded to smile.

So back to my girl: I'm fairly sure hers isn't a story of sexism or patriarchy, and I know her face is beautiful. But it is undeniably true that societally we prefer our individuals to be calm and cheerful. Strong emotions make us skittish, don't they?

Is there a lesson here? I haven't fully absorbed it yet, but it's no wonder my girl exerted herself to look unbothered. Why is having emotion so difficult to witness?

I hope your weekend is full of smiles - but only because they're what you feel.

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The art of shaving**

noreply@blogger.com (Robin (noteverstill/noteversewing)) — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 04:23:00 +0000

This weekend, L found the fancy pom poms in the craft drawers. I'm going to tell you something about the craft drawers: I keep all manner of supplies at kids' level without much regard to order or planning. If they can reach, they can create at the kitchen table. They're happy and busy and exercising their imaginations, and I do love to marvel at their imaginations.

Here's a phrase my work colleagues will particularly appreciate: my philosophy for the kids' crafting is more process, less product. I don't want to lesson-plan them into making. I just keep us in supply of glue and tape and interesting things like pom poms. They are welcome to do what they please with what they find.

This weekend's pom pom discovery brought L down to the bottom of a drawer, chasing every little pom that had escaped its bag. These were no ordinary fuzzy poms. They had the spherical soft fuzz at their core but they also boasted long tendrils of tinsel. They were unmistakably alluring.

What would you do with be-tinseled pom poms? L sat on the floor, criss-cross applesauce, treasure trove in her lap. She was wearing a turquoise velvet princess ball gown from the dress-up bin, and strings of Mardi Gras beads around her neck. A dozen faded Valentine's tattoos peeked out across her lower legs. I could see slivers of her back between the gown's velcro fixtures.

She sat with a small scissors and she gave each pom a gentle haircut. It wasn't destructive the way small kids sometimes can be impulsively destructive. It was quiet, mindful, meditative. It reminded me of how her brother loves cutting paper, how I can hand him the paper recycling and a pair of scissors to head off a tantrum. She trimmed and turned and cut and examined, carefully working through her bearded poms until they had mere five-o-clock shadows.

Tiny tinsel tumbleweeds floated through the kitchen, caught on the dining room carpet, snagged on the stairs. My girl, though, the one I think of as the wildest of my wilds, she sat in quiet concentration and I watched her silently determine the perfect shearing for each of her tiny friends.

When E was five I remember thinking often what a fun age it is, and L is reminding me of that sentiment. I don't know what runs through her wild when it quiets, but as she emerges from small childhood into unique personhood, I know that I love watching her grow. And it's totally worth the day-after-dollhouse-Christmas mess.

(** with great restraint not titled Hairy Balls)

Tax season

noreply@blogger.com (Robin (noteverstill/noteversewing)) — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 22:00:00 +0000

You know how tax professionals talk about their season? We noteverstills, this is our tax season.

Everybody talks about co-parenting like it's a good thing. Get the dad involved! Men are parents, too! Mom works, dad does dishes, woohoo! My lovely husband, he's all-in with the co-parenting. He does most of the child-food-prep and most of the dishes and he's the kids' preferred diaper changer. He's a champ. You see where this is a problem.

He leaves. And then everything falls apart.

He travels all the time for work. And you know I got this, right? I can work nine hours and pick up three kids in two places and feed everyone and lay out tomorrow's outfits and check math homework and bake brownies for the inevitable classroom party and explain magnetism and that when you say out-of-sane, I think you're really looking for the word "insane," and yes, that is how I'm feeling right now. Just a bit. But it's good. Because I'm a modern day superwoman.

(As are you, dear reader. I'm sure of it.)
(Unless you're a guy?)

I can make up for his food prep and his diaper changing but I can't make up for his presence, so this whole balancing act only sustains us through the waking hours.

Here's a fact: my kids are terrible sleepers. They always have been. I'm not the best sleeper, and my dad is a really terrible sleeper, so I'm thinking there's a genetic predisposition to insomnia and light sleeping and maybe this is all my dad's fault? Except my dad was the original professional co-parenter, so maybe I'm not assigning blame well right now.

Maybe I'm too tired to make any sense.

Anyway, back to our story: so during the day, my kids may not want me to take on their father's customary roles, but they deal with it moderately reasonably. At bedtime, though, this one only wants Daddy to read and that one says only Daddy can apply the perfect amount of toothpaste to a toothbrush and the third one? He's shrieking by now because Daddy should change his diaper and you know what I should do? I should go away. That's what he tells me, night after night. Go away! I don't want you in my room I WANT MY DADDY!

None of this particularly bothers me except that for all the collective daddy-wanting, I have no ability to conjure him in front of us so we still need to get to bed -- without him. And I'm down with the being yelled at because I like kids who like their daddies so in the big picture, this is all a good thing. In the here-and-now, could you pass the ear plugs, please?

This is what inevitably happens, in the cruelest snowball known to modern superwomanhood: bedtime takes longer than it should. Kids who've now stayed up too late have trouble falling asleep. Kids who go to sleep overtired don't sleep soundly. Kids wake up tired and are even more cranky by the next evening.

And my three little lovelies, the ones who don't sleep well in the best of circumstances? They're just a mess, all night long. I'm pretty sure that they set their decoder ring alarm clocks to coordinate their wakefulness because SOMEBODY IS ALWAYS AWAKE.

This is tax season: the lovely husband? His biggest work project of the year is unfolding right now. When he travels away from us, those three little lovelies eventually succumb to the numbing desperation that is his absence and fall into a modified acceptance of my single-parenting. But for this past week, the lovely husband hasn't actually gone away, he's just been gone from the house because he's been working 18- and 20-hour days at the office.

Really. He came home at 2:35am ~~last night~~ this morning.** This week is the awful-est terrible-est for our kids because they see him ever-so-briefly each morning and know he's here, somewhere, just not with them.

**I know, because I was awake then, because one of the not-to-be-named littles was awake then.

This week is the hardest of the whole year. When nobody sleeps, nothing else happens. Instead of coming downstairs from their bedtimes to tend to the house and the dishes and the laundry and the mail and the uniform that must be washed and the toy that must be glued, I fall asleep in someone's bed at bedtime. I'm not upset at myself about it because if I only sleep from 8:30-11:45pm every night, that's sleep that should be had. Last night I woke up in L's bed at 11:45 and went downstairs. But G woke up screaming from a nightmare at about 12:15. And then he yelled at me when I walked in. But Mommy, you said Daddy is coming home I DON'T WANT YOU I WANT MY DADDY! Sorry, kid. Not tonight. Not yet.

I think every single toy is out and on the floor. Every single dairy dish is dirty (we keep kosher -- if the dairy thing didn't make sense to you, don't worry about it). There are at least two rooms in the house carpeted in tissues because Mr. G has a habit of pulling them out of the box one-by-one for fun.

(Say it with me: good thing he's cute!)

This week is a card catalog of failures, because I can't uphold any personal commitments. It's a horror-story diorama of home-ec anarchy. It's a sanguine confessional: it's all good, guys. Sometimes having it all means letting it all fall apart around you. I boil it all down to its essence: nourishment, shelter, clean underpants, and all the 2am reassurance a child could ever want. Everything else can wait.

This mess, this life, the bags under my eyes, my genetically-sleep-depraved [n.b. not a typo] kids who miss their daddy but are proud of how hard he works? It's just tax season. I step over the toys and wash just enough dishes and maybe everyone gets applesauce instead of fresh fruit with dinner, because I have no energy to chop it (and there's no clean cutting board). But I smile at them extra-much and hug them extra-squeezy and drink larger cups of coffee.

The weekend of the big project has arrived and the lovely husband has moved into a hotel downtown for the duration. He'll come home Tuesday. The kids will squeal. They'll go to sleep faster and happier, post-child evenings will again exist, and we'll put all the messy pieces back together. That's how it goes. Truth: this having-it-all life is hard, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

(Even then, though, they still won't sleep through the night, my out-of-sane nocturns.)

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