She gathers the colors she wants.  Sometimes a rainbow has only one color in different shades.  Sometimes it has every color she can find.  She picks paper - usually construction paper, but junk mail envelopes and pages from her journal and blank white drawing paper are also popular choices.  Then she draws a line.  Then she scribbles little blocks of each color.  And when she is finished, she puts her name in the corner of the paper and scampers to the fridge to hang up her masterpiece.  I never want to forget what our kitchen looks like bursting at the seams with drawings of rainbows.

She has tried banana, tomato, carrot, mulberry, boysenberry, loquat, zucchini, and sweet potato.  Boysenberry is her favorite.  She likes them bitter and barely ripe and warm from the sun.  And when her face is covered in the juice and she is smiling happily at me, I feel like the luckiest woman in the world.

Charlotte will be four in a few weeks.  This year Charlotte asked us if we could celebrate her birthday and if she could have a party and if it could be like the circus.  I said yes, baby, of course we can.

She is finishing up her first year of preschool and her French is phenomenal.  We raised silkworms this year and gave some to her teacher for the class.  They are all in cocoons right now, still and snug, and we are counting down the days until they burst forth.  Charlotte is very curious about them and asks to see the cocoons every morning.

A few days ago, Charlotte learned how to catch a ball for the first time.  We have tried to work on this skill before but she has never shown interest until now.  Donald was over the moon.  He bought a tiny little mitt for Charlotte and every afternoon they play catch together in the yard.  Sometimes I peek out at them and I think that these moments are the reason I became a parent.

What a difference two years makes!

My e-mails tell me that people are wondering where we are and what we are doing.  Some of you are worried that we are dead or that someone is ill or that something is very wrong.  Thank you for your concern – and I am so sorry to leave you hanging!

We are busy, so there is less time to blog.  We are tired, so there is less energy.  And right now we are dealing with a very complicated personal matter, so there is less inclination.

But we are alive and we have our health and I miss blogging and our lives are mostly the same as always, so I will try not to neglect this blog quite as sorely in the future.  Pinky promise.

Charlotte learned this much very early in life.  She is free to be as loud as she wants in most of this house, but I reign over bathroom silence with an iron fist.  I like my hygiene and bodily functions tended to in peace, thankyouverymuch.  There is no unnecessary talking or noise allowed when: someone is on the toilet, someone is in the shower, teeth are being brushed, a diaper is being changed, or I am cutting Donald’s hair.

So.

Yesterday.

Yesterday morning I took the girls to a playdate at a nearby park.  We left a little later than I had intended to, but I still made the decision to try to run a grocery errand on the way home.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, but within about two minutes of entering the market I was made acutely aware of the fact that the last-minute errand was actually one of the worst ideas I have ever had as a parent.  Charlotte was so exhausted that she was just bouncing off the walls to keep herself awake.  She pushed the cart into an unsuspecting fellow customer, went running down the aisle, and generally made me question why it is that preschool-aged children are allowed on the planet at all.

I mean, really.

So with superhuman speed, I gathered what we needed and wrangled the beast and got us up to the cash register.  Charlotte’s behavior did not improve while we waited in line.  She was just…awful.  I love my kid, but let’s call a spade a spade, it was miserable.  She was exhausted, I was frustrated and everyone around us was suffering because of my mistake.  I am generally an exceedingly patient person with children, but I could tell that I was losing my cool and then Charlotte knocked over a display case and I lost every bit of calm I had left.  I reached out, grabbed her wrists, and pulled her face within an inch of mine.

“I have had ENOUGH!” I hissed at her.  “BE QUIET AND STOP THIS RIGHT NOW!”

Instantly, Charlotte responded.  “Why, Momma?  Are you pooping?  In your pants?  At the grocery store?”

And then, looking more scandalized than a three-year-old ever has any business looking, she yelled out. “MOMMA!  WHY ARE YOU POOPING IN YOUR PANTS AT THE GROCERY STORE?!”

If nothing else, I am an opportunist.  I jumped all over that nap like white on bread.

She napped for several hours that afternoon.  When Donald came home, she woke up and helped him prepare dinner.  As soon as we were finished, she brushed her teeth and asked for a story and fell back asleep.

The next morning she woke up feverish.  By midday she was complaining of a stomachache.  She spent most of the day sleeping and vomiting.  One minute she would be running a fever, lying listless on the couch, shivering under a pile of blankets.  The next minute she would be running around the house like nothing was wrong, coughing but otherwise unaffected.  The entire time she resisted eating and drinking.

It went on like this for nearly a week with no noticeable decline or improvement.  Nobody else in the family was showing symptoms of any sort, so we thought the most likely explanation was heat exhaustion.  Charlotte has always been very sensitive to heat and prone to heat exhaustion.

But then one morning Charlotte woke up with a red swelling behind her ear.  “Momma,” she said nuzzling against me.  “Please make them stop hammering.”

It was seven o’clock in the morning.  I could hear the birds twittering their morning songs outside.  I could hear the baby babbling happily on a quilt on a floor.  I could hear the dishwasher running in the kitchen.  There was no hammering.  I called the doctor, made a late morning appointment, and slowly got Charlotte ready.

She had a raging throat and ear infection and mastoiditis.  The doctor prescribed antibiotics and ran through a list of symptoms to be on the lookout for, symptoms that could indicate either a brain infection or meningitis.  I felt like a Class A idiot for not taking her in sooner.  I gave her the first dosage of antibiotics a couple hours later.  She immediately fell asleep.  The doctor checked in with us twice the following day and once each day for the next week to make sure that Charlotte was responding to the antibiotics.  The swelling behind her ear went down.  By the time we went in for a follow-up appointment her infections were tamed.  The only evidence left behind was scarring along her ear canal and the ordinary consequences of antibiotic usage that we promptly set about addressing.

Before Charlotte’s infections cleared up entirely, the rest of the family came down with some sort of flu bug, a hacking cough, and pink eye.  The baby spent three consecutive days only sleeping two or three hours in the night and napping fitfully during the day.  The congestion and the sleeplessness were forces to be reckoned with.  I coughed so hard I pulled a muscle and hurt my ribs.  Then, because I was holding the baby differently to accommodate my tender ribs, I developed two plugged ducts.

It was every bit as awesome as it sounds.

But the days have marched by and we are finally on the mend.  One of the children is still dealing with conjunctivitis in one eye and the other child is still a hacking, sputtering disaster…but we’re resuming normal life activities and beginning to imagine a life outside of moping around with fevers and chamomile tea again.

This morning I am taking the children for a neighborhood nature walk.  And I am thinking over and over and over again just how lucky we are to have our health the vast majority of the time.

    2.  Grandma is visiting!  Charlotte is beside herself with excitement.

    3.  For the first time ever, Donald and I tried grilling asparagus with just a little bit of olive oil.  It was unbelievably delicious.

    4.  We recently purchased six one-month-old turkey poults from a turkey farmer (rancher? breeder?) in the desert.  We are hosting Thanksgiving this year and I cannot wait to see one of our birds on the table.

If I had to pick one word to sum up your personality at this stage in your life, it would be “fun.”  Your father and I are constantly swapping stories about the clever things you say, the silly things you do, the adventures you get up to.  We so thoroughly enjoy being a part of your life and watching you grow that it’s hard to imagine that there was ever a time when you were not a part of our lives.

For whatever reason, you LOVE to hear about this.  To you, it is a great wonder that we existed before you were born, much less that we DID things or KNEW people.  Interesting things.  Cool people.  And to you, these mystery activities and relationships are the makings of fascinating stories, stories that you simply cannot get enough of.  Over and over you repeat these stories.

This, Charlotte.  I LOVE THIS.  People ask me sometimes how it is that I know so much about my family.  The answer is that we told a lot of stories, kiddo.  Every night we sat down around the dinner table and we ate and we laughed and we shared stories, and all these years later I remember them.  Those stories give me a sense of orientation and I love passing them on to you (and watching you dress up later and act them out).  I wonder endlessly at what sorts of stories you will help us create, which ones will become family lore and which ones will fade and be forgotten when we’re gone.

But we’re having fun outside of storytelling too.  You especially seem to be having quite a bit of fun with your sister.

Charlotte, you are too young right now to grasp the meaning of this particular family story, but when your sister was born, your voice was the first thing she responded to.  She was a silent and unhurried baby at birth, but then she heard your voice.  She heard you come into the room exclaiming about her new baby, and she picked her head up off my chest and wiggled about as though she were looking for you.

And from that moment, you have been her very favorite person.  For nearly a month, you were the only person who could make her smile, and she still makes your father and I earn her laughs but will give you great peals of laughter at every opportunity.

I watch the two of you together and am just left in awe at the relationship you are forging.  The two of you are building a friendship that I sincerely hope will endure for many, many decades to come.  When I hear both of you giggling together as “Evelyn the Flying Baby” and I chase you around the house or pull you along the floor together on a blanket, I find myself thinking about my own sisters and our relationships.  I remember your Auntie E pulling me and a gallon of milk in a wagon on the way home from the corner dairy.  I remember having a nightmare once and waking up to your Aunt R tucking me back into bed so that I’d stay warm.  I remember climbing in trees with them and pretending we were Olympians on the balance beam our father built and doing cartwheels in the front yard.

And as I remember these things, I look at our relationships today.  Your aunts and I sometimes talk very frequently and sometimes do not talk much at all, but there is something about sharing a childhood that creates a bond between two people which cannot be broken.  It is a precious relationship, this one that you and Evelyn are growing together, and I genuinely hope that you enjoy experiencing life together for the rest of your days.

Speaking of fun with babies, by the way, you are also very much enjoying this:

I found that old pink scarf in a cabinet the other day.  The next weekend your cousins handed you down an old baby doll that you instantly fell head over heels in love with.  And boom!, ever since I’ve spent half of each day helping you wrap up your baby the way that I wrap up your sister.

Cutest.  Thing.  Ever.

May you always enjoy storytelling.  May you always appreciate your sister.  And may you never lose your creativity, sweet child.

We love you more than bears love honey (and everyone knows that’s an awful lot),
Momma and Daddy

“Wait here,” I told Charlotte.  “I’ll be right back, I just want to make sure the neighbor’s dog isn’t hassling the chickens again.”

And I grabbed the baby.

And I went outside.

And I walked toward the backyard.

And at the very same moment that I realized that my birds were being attacked by coyotes, I heard a very deep growl behind me.

Slowly, cautiously, I turned around and came face to snout with a large, young male coyote.  He was lean and dusty and his teeth were bared.  He stood between me and my open kitchen door, the door that lead to the house where my three-year-old was lying sick in bed waiting for me to read to her, and time.stood.still.

I was suddenly acutely aware of my surroundings.  I felt Evelyn shifting her weight toward me, tensing her body, and it dawned on me that to the coyote in front of me, she was seventeen pounds of delicious.  My mind felt like it was processing every possible option at the speed of light – could I stuff the baby in the tree? were there any rocks for me to throw? would shouting for help put Charlotte in greater danger because she might come to see what all the noise was about?

Two seconds later, one of the smaller coyotes nipped at the large coyote’s tail as it loped past.  The large coyote stood silent for a moment, looking at me, then turned and trotted away.  In no time at all, they were gone.

I ran inside, shut the door, then rushed back to the bedroom to check on Charlotte, and came pretty fucking close to melting into tears of relief on the spot.

“I want to read the pirate book,” she told me.  So we did.  We read the pirate book.  We read and my heart slowed and I thanked the heavens for my daughters, for these moments, for our lives and our health and our lack of coyote mauling.

A few hours later, the coyotes came back.

This time I was ready for them.  I set the baby in the bouncer and I locked my daughters in the bedroom so that the coyotes could not, under any circumstances, reach them.  I dialed 9-1-1 so that if I were injured all I needed to do was press the call button.  Then I looked around for something to throw at the coyotes to scare them off.

The nearest thing was a package of cookies left behind by some relatives after a family gathering the weekend prior.  So I grabbed the package of cookies, took two steps outside, closed the door behind me, and chucked the sweets at the nearest coyote.

That wimpy little Nabisco package got the job done.  It hit the coyote right above its back and all three of the flea-ridden suckers took off.  And none too soon because as soon as the package hit the coyote, all of the cookies inside went flying.  And as soon as the cookies went flying, every chicken in my yard went off of predator mode and into FREE FOOD! mode.  They started running toward the cookies before the coyotes were even out of the yard.

So in summary: unless you want a heart attack, do not ever walk into the middle of a pack of hungry coyotes with a baby on your hip.  And also, chickens are dumb.  The end.

Then she asked if she could take some pictures of her sister on her own.  Giving Charlotte the camera is one of my favorite things to do; I love to see the world as she sees it.  So I secured it around her wrist, reminded her not to touch the lens, and let her have at it.

I am finding parenthood with two children to be immensely challenging.  I feel like I am always a step behind.  Several of my neighbors and close friends have three, four, five, six children and they somehow seem to have their act together.  Then there’s me, always twenty minutes late, always a few hours behind on sleep, one child or another seemingly always sick.

But when I see these pictures, I don’t see any of that.  I don’t see the time Charlotte was traumatized by my complete oblivion to Pajama Day at school.  I don’t see the time I downplayed everyone’s concern about Evelyn’s symptoms, then took her to the doctor and found out she had bronchitis, a raging ear infection, and strep throat all at once.  I don’t see the time Charlotte told one of her friend’s parents that Momma and Daddy “like to watch adult movies” (and sadly, she informed them, we don’t let her join in) or the time she screamed so loud that passersby on a walk stopped in to make sure I wasn’t killing her (I wasn’t, I just didn’t have the right color hairbow available when she wanted it) or the time I didn’t notice that Evelyn had thrown up while being carried on my back until long after it was dried and crusted into my hair.

No, all I see when I look at these pictures is joy.  My babies laughing together, cooing together, enjoying one another’s company.  And when I see that, the failures don’t seem quite as bad.

** Charlotte is three years and eight months old.  Evie is (almost) five months old.

And then she was born.  And she was perfect.  And she was mine.

Evelyn will be five months old this week.  I have loved her more quietly than I loved her sister.  I have loved her more steadily.  I have loved her more reverently.

When Charlotte was born, I often spent long hours watching her sleep and longing for the days when she would walk and run and jump.  What color would her eyes be?  When would she crawl?  What would her voice sound like?  I have always loved Charlotte exuberantly.  I love her big personality, her loud voice, her fearless nature, her fierce curiosity.

But Evie, my Evie, is a different bird.  I love her silence, her husky growls, her cautious nature.  And, oh, be still my heart, the look of utter contentment that comes across her face as she sleeps pressed against my body.  I often spend long hours sleeping beside her, enjoying the moment, reluctant to let it pass.  We are still getting to know each other, the two of us, and I am appreciating every second.

Two different girls.

Two different ways of adoring them.

But in the end, I love them equally.  When I cradle my daughters in my arms, I am holding my everything and I cannot help but love them both with every fiber of my being.

It really is true that parenthood expands your heart in unforeseen ways.  I have never in my life been more thankful to find that my fears were unfounded.

** Charlotte is three years and eight months old.  Evie is (almost) five months old.

On our way to preschool, I hear her pipe up from the backseat.  Why is the car wet on the outside?  Did it rain?

No, I tell her.  The earth and the air were different temperatures and it caused the water droplets in the air to condense.

She’s quiet for a moment, then rejects my explanation.  No, she says.  It was maybe just magic.

Then she asks me if she can have a dragon?  Please?  One of her very own?

No, I tell her.  Dragons aren’t real.

She insists that they are and I give up.  Okay, I say, if you can find a dragon and catch it, we can keep it.

She will feed it fish stew, she says.  Like the dragon in her book.  And tangerines like Elmer Elevator.

And then we’re talking about chickens and why they don’t talk.  And then we’re talking about what it means to “rewind” something.  And then we’re talking about Grandpa and how he lets her eat her very own ice cream.  And then we’re talking about where Easter eggs come from, and why she’s never seen a fairy, and how rainbows happen, and where crayons are manufactured, and whether or not her radish at school will have sprouted yet.

And I’m driving along, answering three hundred questions a minute, listening to the amazing concoctions of this little mind, thinking about how the whole world seems maybe just magic to her.

I kind of understand because she seems maybe just magic to me.

** Charlotte is three years and eight months old.  Evie is (almost) five months old.

Every year our yard is taken over by thousands upon thousands of ladybugs, but before they come around we deal with thousands upon thousands of aphids.  Based on this picture, I think it’s safe to say we’re ready for the ladybugs!

After sitting on the idea for two years, I finally organized a small home-education community with a few other parents in the area.  Our eighth gathering was last week, but it was our first attempt at structure.  I hosted it. It’s going to take a few months for us to get the hang of this, but both of my kids were conked out within ten minutes of everyone leaving the house.  In that respect, I will always consider it a raging success.

Evelyn is turning out to be quite the thumb-sucker.  She even tries to sneak her thumb in when she’s nursing!  But every time I try to take a picture of it, she pulls her thumb out and stares at me curiously.  Like this.

Tandem-wearing is difficult, but I’m getting better at it.

There are still snails that get along faster than I do, though.

At least half of my photographs of Evelyn are of her poking out of one carrier or another.  So.  Cute.

Something that I really struggled with for the first three months postpartum was keeping Charlotte entertained and challenged while I nursed the baby or rested.

For us, the answer turned out to be art.  A few small bowls of collage supplies, a tube of glue, and a few pieces of paper can buy a solid hour of Charlotte’s interest.  And even though we’re now out of the zombie momma phase of newborn-ness, the constant turn to art has stuck around these parts.

Love.

** Charlotte is three years and eight months old.  Evie is four and a half months old.

Before I knew it, she was asking strangers in the grocery store about their families.  How many parents do they have?  Do they ever play with their cousins?  Do they know that she’s going to adopt a baby brother?  HEY!  DO THEY HAVE ANY BROTHERS OR SISTERS?

Oh?  They do?  Well that’s cool.  Did their momma give birth to their brother too?  Oh?  She did?  Huh.  Guess what?  HER momma gave birth to HER sister!  WHAT A COINKYDINK!

One morning, Charlotte stopped everything she was doing and turned to me.  “Momma,” she said, “my friend R has a Momma AND a Mommy.”

“Yes, she does,” I said.

“Z and Z have a Momma and a Mommy too,” she continued.

“Yes, they do,” I said.

“Why do R and Z and Z have two mommas?” she asked.

“Well,” I told her, “every family is different, sweetie.  In our family there is a momma and a daddy, but R and Z and Z’s families have two mommas and no daddy.”

She thought about this for a moment.  “Okay,” she said finally.  “Maybe after lunch, we can go to the store and buy a second momma.  I think I should have two mommas too.”

It was the most darling moment in the world and I wish I could have bottled up her innocence to keep with me forever.

At any rate, I took advantage of the rather golden opportunity to introduce Charlotte to homosexuality.  She really didn’t seem to give a rat’s ass, to be honest.  If you had asked me three months ago how the conversation went down, I would have said that it all went in one of Charlotte’s ears and out the other.

But I would have been wrong, because over the last two weeks Charlotte’s interest in particular topic has been reignited.  She has dozens of questions.  How did these mothers make babies if they don’t have a penis?  Do some women have penises?  Do her friends feel sad because they don’t have fathers?  Do some kids have two dads and no moms?  And so on.

I have been answering her questions as patiently and honestly as possible – and although there are clearly topics she is too young to grasp at play, overall it’s been going well.

Or at least it was going well until a couple days ago when Charlotte started running through her much-practiced, oft-repeated list of questions while we were in line at the market.

“Momma, when will I be grown-up?” she asked.

“In like fifteen years,” I told her.

“When I’m grown-up,” she continued, “do I get married?”

“You can if you want to, but you don’t have to,” I said.

“Oh.  Okay.  And do I marry a boy or a girl?” she asked.

I told her the truth, just like I’ve told her a million times over.  “Charlotte,” I said, “if you decide that you want to be in a relationship with someone, all that matters is that they make you happy and they treat you well.  You can marry anybody you want – a boy or a girl.  What matters is that you love them, that they treat you well, and that you make each other happy.”

And then there was a quiet scoff from the person behind us in line and a muttering under their breath.  I absolutely refuse to put into writing what they said.

To the best of my knowledge, Charlotte did not hear them.  Or perhaps their statement made no sense to her and so she just wrote it off as another great mystery of the adult world, soon to be forgotten.

But the days have passed and I have pondered over this and for the first time in my life I have started to realize just how much prejudice there is in this world.  What that woman said in the market made my heart ache; how could she write off an entire community of people simply because her sexual orientation differs from theirs?  How could she expose a child to such hateful speech?  And how difficult it must be to hear words like that spoken about you if you were homosexual, or about your child or someone else you know if they were?  What is the right response to someone so ignorant?

Then it turned into a moment of what can only be described as profound sadness as it dawned on me how many times I’ve done THE EXACT SAME THING under different circumstances.  How many times have I said hateful or discriminatory things without realizing it?  How many times have I said hateful or discriminatory things and not cared?  How hurtful are those things to other people who hear them?  How sad does it make those people to hear these words spoken in the presence of their children?  And suddenly I was seized by a deep, powerful desire to right this, to fix this, to be a better person.  For Charlotte.  For Evelyn.  For the people they may one day love.  For the children they may one day raise.  For every child everywhere who deserves a more accepting world.

They say that a baby changes everything.

I guess I never expected that a three-year-old would change even more.

** Charlotte is three years and eight months old.  Evie is four and a half months old.