in the morning

There is golden light this morning and a dozen blue jays, plumage ruffled, in the lilac out the window. The walls are striped with shadows from the window panes, the trees outside, the angles of furniture illumined by the morning sun. I watch the way heat dances; sunlight revealing the shadows of the invisible. Waves of warmth rising, shimmering, lifting from the wood stove, where logs become embers, and across the clear valley ribbons of smoke lift from solitary houses. Above the sky is the color of robin’s eggs: pale, pale blue.

Snow dresses the world in magic when the sun shines. Frost makes fractal whorls on the glass panes of the windows in the garage, and snowflakes, each one spectacular and individual, glint and sparkle across the wide expanse of field where tracks crisscross, revealing other secrets: the paths of squirrels and foxes going at dusk to the stream.

Today the mercury is shy despite the sun, and breath catches sharp in our lungs and rises up in steamy clouds. Today the boys are home. The house is filled with their clatter, laughter, disagreements, and small storms. They leave behind a trail: marbles, blocks, honey, bread crusts, airplanes. They wear at my patience. They fill me with delight. They are, always and again a lesson in living right now. In shifting gears abruptly. In being here. Right here.

Some days it’s not where I want to be. Some days, like today, I feel myself longing for the unremarkable quiet of an empty house. Instead there are sticky fingers and boys still in pajamas. There is spilled cat food, and snow melting in puddles at the door, and boys who want the things that sustain them: attention and stories and be seen.

And so I do. I turn to Sprout who is climbing into the chair beside me, and press my face into his warm head. I get up from the table and carry my empty cup to the sink; gather things to make bread dough. Rinse my hands. Wipe the counters clear.

Together we will knead the bread and then place it in bowls in the sun. It will rise there all morning in the warmth, and then we’ll shape it into loaves, spreading it with cinnamon and sugar. I’ll let them lick their fingers and I’ll turn the oven light on. They’ll press their faces against the oven door and look. They’ll wait for the timer to ring and then eat slices of bread, fluffy and warm with melting butter for snack.

I’ll let this be the present: warm bread and sticky fingers and sun.

push | pull

There is the bittersweet that comes from having things go exactly as they should and then be over; just as that feeling springs from things going exactly opposite to what was planned and all the loose ends that come from such moments of disappointment and disarray. This was our holiday: joy-filled and tense at turns; full of expectations and sparkly lights and glee, and also frustration. Family drama (his, not mine this time.) Stubborn boys. Heaps of snow, chocolate, caramel corn, and candle light. Singing carols. Good wine. Snowboarding for the first time.

And Bean insisting he knows how to do it already—then hurtling down the mountain at a speed that defines the term break neck, only to throw himself to the ground at frightening angles to stop. Twapity, thwack. And then he’d sit there dazed, distracted, and completely clueless as an entire ski school made a zig zag around him, as though he were the outermost pole in a slalom course.

My firstborn is not a child who wants to be taught.

At least not by his mama. And I should have known better—swimming lessons have been a disaster two years running. Ice skating had similarly poor outcome. Still, T and I are lovers of the outdoors; of sports; and of doing them together…and Bean asked, no, begged for a snowboard for Christmas.

The scene was set. A perfect white powder day, the day after Christmas, just the three of us on the mountain. Good tunes in the car on the way up. The promise of hot chocolate. New gear.

But he would only do it his way. For two painstaking runs. And then he wanted to stop.

Because it was hard.

Oh expectations.

I am aware that there is a very salient lesson in all of this. Something about letting go of attachment; about not having expectations; about letting things just be, moment by moment.

But there is another fierce, plucky, determined part of me that doesn’t settle for that all of the time. Carpe diem was not a term derived by someone sitting on their laurels.

And I believe there is something mighty to be said for perseverance. For doing something even though it is hard; maybe because it is hard. Willpower is invaluable as an adult. As is self reliance.

The outcome?

He’s going to take some lessons. End of story. (Even though I'm internally waffling: is he ready? Is he big enough for half day lessons? Does he have the stamina? What if I ruin sports for him forever?)

I’m starting to understand that this parenting thing doesn’t ever get easier. Sure, he can dress himself, and poop without assistance and he can be left unattended to clean up his room and he won’t pull every tissue out of the box while doing so. But the emotional complexity is increasing daily. Control. Compassion. Give. Take. And figers crossed: maybe a couple gifted teachers along the way to smooth the rough edges of our attempts.

How do you decide when to push your kid and when to let them call the shots?

A list from today:

Hello! It's so easy for me to slip back into not posting--having failed miserably at NaBloPoMo. But I refuse. So here I am with a few highlights from today:

* Alone all day to work on projects with only the cat for company * A phone call with my older sister whose little boy is 2 weeks old today. Love hearing his wee little fusses in the background. * A pomegranate * Starting to 'get' ActionScript 3.0 just a little * Filling this sweet elf house of Bean's with color

What are some highlights from your day?

This moment

At the counter after school. Ramin noodles + scallions in warm broth. Israel Kamakawiwo'ole + his banjo on the stereo. And for a moment we were just there at the counter, the three of us slurping the extra long noodles and giggling and drinking the broth straight from the bowl and I could feel how we were at the eye of every storm that had come or would come: the afternoon ahead of us with its various unravelings and tantrums. But right then, I let myself breathe and unfurl a little into the delicious present...and then I went to get my camera because the stripes and the noodles and the little boy grins were making me want to explode with happiness. Yes.

A snapshot from today:

The light of late autum is gold, gold, gold. It fills our south-west facing dining room all afternoon; honey on the table, honey on the floor, and we’re drawn to it like bees, sitting barefoot, my son drawing while I write. Above the bare branches of the trees, insects swarm; the last warm days a small ellipsis of insect procreation. Out the back door the chickens come, inquisitive, pecky, turning over every crumpled leaf in search of bugs not burrowed down. The shadows fall long, longer, across the valley spreading indigo lace below the trees. Each chicken has a shadow twice her size, imaginary hens on stilts, walking slantwise across the leaf strewn grass.

Sprout is napping and Bean and I are each occupied in our own way. Me: editing. Him: drawing blueprints for gnome houses and prototypes for robotic flying cars.

Suddenly he leaps back from his work table, “AAAAH! Something scary with pinchers just ran behind my desk!” he screams with dramatic flare.

His eyes are genuinely huge, but then he sees me smiling. I cannot hold the laughter back. “Really?” I ask. “Is it going to eat you?”

Now his eyes grow wider. He looks off for a minute into space.

“It cannot eat me.” He concludes hesitantly. “I am bigger than it. I could just…I could just squish it. Right?”

Oh how I love this silly boy of mine.

Almost 6

I just had to share Bean's kindergarten photo. Swoon. He is such a rascal. Almost 6 and full of determination and eccentricity and delight. He is all about bossy, and "mine is better." He is all about talking all the time, inserting himself into ever conversation, chattering over everyone and everything else going on. He is all about drama. Tears. Howls. High Drama.

Like this morning when he fell off a stool at the counter and then hit his plasma car. It was comical. He was FINE. Totally fine. And yet you'd think he had lost a limb. The wailing. You can tell he is delighting in every minute of it. There is almost a little grin at the edge of his face even as he's wailing. This little guy has always been one to burst into tears: over the thought of Lyle Lyle stuck in the zoo, over a lost twist tie; over anything. It's something I love about him: how tender he is. He sees the world in such a sensitive, thoughtful, particular way.

In my head he's still 4. How is it possible he's almost 6?

++++

Also: My sweet sister had her baby this morning at 12:10am! An 8lb, 6oz little boy! So excited and happy for them I can hardly stand it.

big messes + small deceptions

Today was all about getting things ready for winter: tossing our fat ghoulish pumpkins into the compost and raking up piles of wet leaves, mostly to be jumped in by Sprout and Bean. It was cold and our cheeks were pink after an hour spent outdoors, mowing the lawn a final time for the season and gathering up the stray bits of bark left from the wood that we stacked. Inside, after pulling off muddy boots and wet gloves we made hot chocolate: unsweetened cocoa and sugar melted with a bit of boiling water, then stirred into frothed milk with a touch of cream. Little boy moustaches, happy grins, and only one spill. “Uh oh, uh oh” Sprout exclaimed as his drink pooled into his lap.

By the end of every day my boys are covered head to tow with the evidence of their days: mud and chocolate, paint on their shirts, pasta sauce on their elbows. Are all little boys messy, or are mine particularly so? Reckless in glee and sensory delight. They’ve both grown this month; a late autumn growth spurt. One of my favorite things about our house is the corner wall between the kitchen and the den where we mark their growth with stubby pencils or whatever pen we can find.

“Let’s see if I grew!” Bean will exclaim gleefully after eating a particularly enormous serving of pasta or a heaping plate of blueberry pancakes.

Once we were a little overzealous and recorded his growth: a remarkable half inch in a month. The following month we discovered our error: he’d shrunk. Or so it seemed. The line made from his head to the square edge of the book was below the mark we’d already made.

“Did I really shrink?” Bean asked wide eyed.

“You did,” I lied without blinking. “That’s what happens when you don’t eat your veggies.”

Oh yes I did.

leverage

It started out beautifully. Bean + Sprout + sandbox = happy boys + happy mama. Despite the softly falling rain they were content as clams, pushing yellow metal dump trucks over dunes of damp sand. So I went to work stacking wood not twenty yards away. And the next thing I knew...

Sprout was covered head to toe in mud. I don't mean that metaphorically. I mean that very, very literally. He was so covered in fact, that it became immediately evident that he was not the one who had covered himself. His cheeks were painted with mud. His pants, his boots, his knees, elbows, hands, arms, neck. And he was screaming furiously. Indignantly.

Bean looked way too pleased.

See? He thought it was hilarious.

Until, out of nowhere I said, "I'm documenting this to send to Santa, you know."

And then, without looking at him again, I set the camera down and proceeded to strip Sprout down to his diaper. When I was finished I looked up to discover Bean was rooted to the spot. A look of utter abject horror on his face.

Then he dashed inside, removed his muddy clothes, and frantically started hugging Sprout.

I ran Sprout a bath. Bean came up and sat at the edge of the tub, urgently offering toys to Sprout who was delighted by the sudden change of events.

I asked Bean if he wanted to get in too. He said, "I'd be delighted." (Really, he talks like that.)

And then he got in and hugged Sprout and let him have all the toys. And after quite a while he said, "You know mama, you really don't need to send those pictures to Santa."

He was perfectly behaved all afternoon, too. Thank you, Santa.

Chaos + golden light

It's really like this. Golden, golden light. I get out of class and drive home in wonder, my camera on my lap. I pull over randomly to take pictures (one of my many projects for class is to sustain a daily practice--mine has been to take a picture of the same thing every day in different contexts. Here is a peak.) I am stunned over and over and over again by the beauty of this world.

On the radio about a month ago I heard a scientist declare, "there are no miracles," and I spun the tuner away in frustration. How can you look at this wonderment of beauty, or even at the precise minute functioning of your hands or dreams and say there are no miracles? I couldn't live without wonder. Could you?

Today Bean was sick and Sprout was teething--his final teeth (fingers crossed) are poking through, and even so much to do, I spent most of the day outdoors in the mild golden light stacking wood and watching the boys play side by side: with sticks in the mud; in their tree house; in the sand box; in the gathering froth of fallen leaves. Bean desperately wants Sprout to talk, but Sprout is taking his sweet time. He says many words, but enunciates them poorly; always grinning, gesturing, moving. Sprout isn't interested in the names for things the way Bean was at his age; instead he's interested in making people laugh. He is so tuned in emotionally, it always surprises me to see the way his face mirrors mine. When he's done something naughty and I scold him, he bursts into tears of remorse, arms flung wide, running to me to fix it.

But oh, he's got a temper too, that little one. When he want's something and doesn't get it, he'll grab the nearest object and throw it to the floor howling, "No! No!" indignantly. And he does the perfect jelly-limbed all kick and squiggle tantrum. Nothing lasts though, and he's like a summer day. Even when the clouds show up, it's only for a little while. Bean on the other hand will dig in and stay moody for a long, long time. He does things his way regardless of who he annoys, or disappoints. His. Own. Drummer. Oh yes.

By Thursday the week has always pummeled me a bit. My mind spits sparks. The ideas lift off and land like startled birds and I'm always hoping I'll have enough down time and quiet to catalogue them, though I rarely do. My notebooks are bursting. My desktop is a daily array of exploding files. Thursday always shoves me back into the daily, immediate, messy parts of my life. The laundry that's piled up; the wood that needs stacking; boys, loud, snotty nosed and grimy handed with jelly grins and the softest hair in the world.

Today we made gingerbread cookies and apple sauce from the trees on our land--and it was an exercise in letting chaos happen, let me tell you. Flour, everywhere. The nutmeg grinder disassembled. Apple peels on the floor. Sprout on the counter (he climbs everything all the time now, to all of our chagrin.) Sometimes chaos is perfect.

Chaos and golden light.

snapshots like sunspots

From the past week:

1.

Frustration the color of crushed grapes; my fingers in my palms. We’re at a stand off: my five year old and I. He wants to do one thing, I’ve given him a choice of two others. It was like this when he was a baby. People said, “just let him cry it out,” but when we did, a single time, he cried for an hour, then fell asleep but woke up angry, remembering everything. Now his eyes are puffy with tears and allergies and I’ve had far too little time to myself, and far too many deadlines to make time now for this push and pull. I scream. SCREAM at him. I am ashamed, heartbroken. I want to snip through everything I’ve done with a small pair of embroidery scissors, thread after indelicate thread until I get back to the place where our hearts are close and our cheeks touch.

I hate you, Mommy. I hate you he screams.

Nothing prepared me for this. For the way I would feel like I had ruined everything. Like being broken up with, but irreparably worse. (Thank god we have a few more years before he is a teenager to figure things out...)

Finally I backed down. He played outdoors. We skirted each other ashamed by the mess we’d made of things. At bedtime he asked for Daddy to read to him, and slipped by my studio door without coming to goodnight.

2. T carries him into the bedroom before I am awake. The feeling of his bird like shoulder blades; the hull of his delicate ribs; the haphazard placement of his marionette arms against my neck, wakes me. I love you Mommy. I love you so much.

I love you too. I love you. I love you. I whisper back. His elbow makes an upside down V along the line of my chin. I press my nose into his neck where it smells forever just like him: like cookies and grass and autumn air, and slip a little towards a softer sleep.

3. We're downtown at a street festival and he stands watching the fire throwers, just like his dad, hands in pockets, one knee bent, transfixed. I leave the two of them watching and walk with Sprout and my mother to the Capitol green, where my littlest runs like he has something to prove. (He does: joy is everywhere.) His face beams. He climbs every set of stairs he can finds. He stops to smell every single flower; stroking the plush purple petals of the petunias as though they are the source of joy. (They are.)

4. My little one. He is the still point at the center of my heart, and a twirling dervish that colors my heart with of comfort. He is curls and sticky fingers and sweat on his brow and newly found independence and tantrums. He is laughter with juice running down his chin. He carries crushed gingersnap cookies in his fist and grins.

5. I can see them walking towards us across the green grass, both wearing yellow, like sunshine flooding towards me. They walk in synch and they are grinning: they’ve gotten lemonade and a new hat and gloves for him for winter, and they are almost one and the same, those two foreign bits of my heart.

6. The light is golden and the hills are purple and flame. The leaves have begun to turn to orange; tattered yellow; ocher. The grass is dewy now and strewn with the tree’s spent energy of a season.

Light refracts like fire in what remains.

This + that tonight

Hi. Tomorrow I have some photos to share + some stories about the epic tantrums and dark parenting moments that occurred this weekend (brought to my knees, I dare say, by my five year old Bean who holds my heart rather indelicately among the coins and pebbles and twine and marbles in his pocket) Tonight, I thought I'd share a glimpse into what I've been thinking and doing, squirreled away for hours in my studio studying:

I've been asked several times in the past couple of weeks what Emergent Media is exactly, and, as is often the case with my mixed-media multiple genre life, I find myself wanting to shrug and say: it's everything.

Because it kind of is.

It's words, for starters, and everything conveyed and made possible through the evolution of conveying words with letters, first on papyrus, then on the page, now here, on the screen. Simply: within the story of words evolving from speech to writing, is the story of human beings becoming, of human consciousness evolving, and of media emerging.

Thus, to study Emergent Media is to study both the medium, and the message, the chicken and the egg. It means to study words, and to study the ideas that words convey. It means to study media, and the messages they convey. It means to examine investigate the past for patterns, and to peak towards the future for clues. ...[more]

learning things

I want to feel like I am living down into my feet, but today I make it only as far as my spine: curved, contoured to chair after chair, listening, scribbling notes, my mind compressing and applying information as flexibly as I know how. It’s an all out pummeling to be submerged like this on Wednesdays: 6 hours of class, everything entirely new. Like learning to moon walk, or speak Japanese, that is what it feels like to dive into RAW and HTML and CSS; acronyms becoming little dog-eared tabs of meaning in my mind.

And then to switch gears from web design and theory, to making pizza and nuzzeling sweet little boy heads.

Over warm apple crumble I’d pulled together out of sheer will power Bean said, “I love Nonna more than I love you, Mommy. Just a minute more, but I do.”

Oh, to find the quite open space to be there with him then. To hold that moment open without filling it up with my own small hurts. I couldn’t help but turn away, picking at a fingernail, eyes smarting.

So this is showing up, this is what it’s like to throw yourself towards the day with the urgency and grace and inexperience of a dancer learning new material. Some moments I feel like I am defying gravity: I hit all the deadlines, I take copious notes, my mind is a perpetual shower of sparks while I am vacuuming the kitchen floors. Other times it’s about falling hard: the way my eyes feel blurring from so many consecutive hours of screen and classroom time; the way my boys see me for less time some days than they do their grandparents.

Tonight the house smells like baking apples, and I read the boys stories in the semi-dark of their bedroom. Then I come downstairs to where the house is humming with stillness. I want to fold like an origami bird, wings to body, head tucked inside a fragile crease of paper and sleep, but this isn’t about folding. No, this time, this year, these moments, are all about learning to fly.

One more lesson on the things I cannot control

Here is the truth: I was a certified swim instructor for years. I have taught every kind of person to swim: a 2 year old; an elderly woman; a teenage boy who only spoke Chinese; an autistic 4 year old who would sink blithely, fearlessly to the bottom of the pool if I so much as blinked. I was a lifeguard for years. In California. At a water park and at hectic health club pools where kids would do the deadman’s float just to addle my brains.

Simply: I love the water, and I’m good in it. I can tread water for minutes; swim a mile at a reasonable pace; do the butterfly; snap a flip turn; float forever.

But teach my kid to swim: this, somehow I cannot do. More...

Fishing at home

I discovered a blog this past week that I am absolutely smitten with, that has made all the difference this week in terms surviving summer and having some fun while we’re at it. It’s by a dad, Joel, who is also a designer, artist, crafter, and kid-toy-making genius.

Using Joel’s design as inspiration I sent my husband and Bean out to the garage one morning (while Sprout napped and I snatched an hour or two of writing time) to make a pole using one of the many sticks he has managed to collect.

Side note: have you noticed this about boys? How they seem to have a perpetual thing for sticks. How it’s almost innate, the desire to pick up sticks and wield them about as swords or javelins or flags or walking sticks? Also rocks. My boys, both of them, have this inherent love of gathering rocks, throwing rocks in water, collecting them, kicking them, stowing them in pockets (alas, so many end up in my washer.)...more.

Sweetness

The last few posts have been so moody and somber...but all kinds of lovely has been happening too: sunshine and a warm wind; chalk drawings and skateboarding in the garage; meandering walks down to the pond; homemade pizza with friends.

And today: a trip to the farmer's market, just Bean & me..to meet my lovely friend & her little boy. A cinnamon danish; boys on bikes; exploring by the lakefront; sunburn; an old-fashioned root beer float.

I can't quite describe how lovely it was to hang out with just my big boy. I hardly ever get Bean one-on-one these day's and he's so charming and smart and articulate and full of mischief.

When we came home we spent another few hours out doors with T and Sprout planting shrubs and building a trellis using saplings (can't wait to show you pictures.) Bean loved dragging the saplings down from the woods after T cut them down, and Sprout was pleased as punch to take up occupancy in the holes we dug for the shrubs.

Tomorrow, a laid back Father's Day (will share the super simple + sweet project Bean & I worked on!) with more outdoor projects planned (unless it rains...)

(More on how the first week of summer vacation went here.)

How this began

Going through an old hard drive tonight I found this poem written May 5, 2004... three weeks before I'd find out that I was pregnant with Bean.+++

Today I heard that the Voyager satellite, sent up into space the year before I was born, is now nearing the edge of our solar system. Some scientists think it will encounter a shock wave, before going into the space beyond. My life feels like this, nearing it’s known edge, careening, orbiting, drifting off course around some other center I have not quite named or found, but feel. I expect to be thrown up soon, with force upon taking the risks I know I should take but do not yet understand. I imagine that amidst the white-hot vibrations of shock it will be the memories of things, the words and honey comb and lightening storms, that will cradle me. Giving birth, when the moment is right to a new self, among the nebula and stars. +++

I had no idea how spot-on I was. A poem, like a tear in the stage curtain of the present, and there I was behind it, peeking through.

I also found this, from August, 2009. A quickly scribbled note about a conversation with Bean:

"I fell from the sky mommy. I was a star, and I fell into your tummy." If you look back, can you find any inklings, notes, or snippets about the time when life as you know it now began?

The way things go + some current crushes

Hi! I have so many things I want to share with you today. First, some crushes:

These luminous folder icons have completely revamped my desktop and seriously upped both my cool factor and organization.

These fabulous planers are also rocking my organizational world. I am so not an organized girl when it comes to creative projects. I see BIG PICTURE and details sometimes get sidelined. This in particular has really helped me to narrow my focus and get things done.

And I've been wanting to share this glorious camera bag that arrived in the mail a few weeks ago (I was the Shutter Sister's giveaway winner) and oh man... I can't even begin to tell you how lovely and awesome it is. It's big enough to fit my camera and everything else I schlep around, and pretty enough to make me look put together even when I'm not. (THANK YOU Maile!!)

These photos (swoon) and this blog.

Some news:

I was interviewed here and here this past week by two of the most amazing, inspiring women in the blogosphere.

Last night I put some new prints up in my little shop!

And at this moment: the weather is all over the map still. Rain, sun, wind, rain.

Everything is exuberantly green in the same way that kids color the grass in their pictures: GREEN EVERYWHERE. And while I love what green stands for (summertime picnics, gardening, bike rides, bonfires) I wish the apple blossoms could stay longer. In a single afternoon they exploded into full bloom with bees everywhere, each tree its own secret universe of pollen and petals, and then today, just a few days later, there are already as many petals on the grass as on the trees. So fleeting. So fleeting. Everything is this.

We hung out with the very first friend we made here last night. He was sitting on the porch across from our new apartment as we backed over the curb repeatedly with an enormous moving truck. I remember feeling utterly out of place among the scads of college kids with 7 month old Bean in tow and actual real furniture instead of futons, but M. walked over and said hello, and Bean thought he was the coolest person ever and we've been friends since. Now Bean is five and M. is moving to Austria for an unbelievably awesome job, and wow. Time. There it went.

There is no more of a tangible way to notice time's passing than to watch a child grow. This, and then this. SO FAST. I'm carrying on about this today because I get it this time. I get that these moments right now are the ones I'm going to look back on and say, oh, that was when it started. That's when we had no idea. (Sprout is still small-ish, but the next time I stop to think about it he'll likely be riding a bike. )

I've gotten the most wonderful emails from some of you about being at similar points of transition--and I so love them. I think it is incredibly helpful to tell each other these stories about how things begin. About the moments before beginning when all we're doing is imagining and waiting and things feel scary and at large (because they kind of are.)I want to hear more about these moments in your lives. What is beginning right now? What are you on the brink of?

Snowed in

18 inches of snow yesterday. Today: it's already 55 degrees. Forecast for the weekend? 75 and sunny. My brain is having difficulty computing. ALSO: we don't have power. Haven't for twenty-four hours. Which, truthfully, sucks quite a bit, especially since I work from home on the INTERNET.

Now I'm at a friend's house (she is a lifesaver) and the sun is shining and I'm popping in here to tell you that a guest post is up at Wishstudio that you absolutely must go read!

Springtime Rivalries

The hills are stained varying shades green now. Above the bay windows, swallows build messy nests. All day they swoop in with bits of things in their beaks, building. The lawn is shaggy with dandelions, like a thousand yellow suns scattered carelessly across the small cosmos of the grass. The boys roll about in it like puppies. Sprout delights in sticking each furry yellow blossom in his mouth and making silly faces. Bean asks for dandelion necklaces and drops handfuls of crumpled flowers at my feet. I kneel, looking for four-leaf clovers, and within seconds the boys are there tumbling into me, their bare feet stained green.

Spring feels like a thing for sure, but then T. checks the weather and discovers SNOW in the forecast.

“What? Come ON!” he says emphatically from his office.

From his location crouched at T.’s office door where he’s repairing the Lego pirate ship he’s constructed Bean says: “You don’t need to be so agitated, Daddy.”

I cannot THINK of the last time I used the word agitated.

But it’s such a good word, isn’t it? And him using it is a perfect snapshot where Bean is at now: five years old, suddenly mischievous, and entirely a boy who lives in the world in his head. He loves words like I do. And stories. We tell them all the way to school every day. Cliffhangers make him howl in reproach….and of course I love to end the story just at the juiciest part, to be picked up the next day.

My favorite time with him lately has been first thing in the morning when he comes into our room when T. is in the shower, and Sprout is still asleep, and I’m in bed still, dreams fluttering against my still-closed eyes like light-drunk moths.

“Hi Mommy,” he’ll say, scooting in beside me. Then we rearrange our arms and legs just so, like a set of nesting bowls, so that I’m tucked entirely around him, my nose wedged into his cheek. He smells like sun and vanilla and sleep. His own sweet little boy fragrance that I know I’ll crave when he’s tall and lanky with pit stains and peach fuzz on his cheeks. But the real reason I love this time in particular is because he’s still sleepy and his busy little mind hasn’t kicked into overdrive yet (which is his modus operandi the rest of the day: “why? why? what? why? how?”) and he’s so tender then, and small. The rest of the time, well, there is a certain point—that starts at about age of three, maybe—where personality takes over, and personal stature no longer aptly describes the person that a child is. He might be small still, but he fills up a room.

And speaking of, can we about sibling rivalry, a wee bit?

Bean and Sprout are exactly four years apart, and while this works well for me (in the sense that I would have entirely lost the contents of my mind all over my life like a bag full of spilled raisins had I had them closer together) it creates a particular dynamic between the two of them, that is interesting, at the very least. Basically: Bean is either annoyed by Sprout’s endless curiosity and desire to touch and hold (read: destroy) anything Bean is constructing... or he is TRYING to annoy Sprout by grabbing him by taking things away from him, pouncing on him, or otherwise inhibiting Sprout's stalwart and determined attempts to go ANYWHERE or do ANYTHING unimpeded.

Truly. I expected competition. I am the middle sister. I am familiar with competition. But boys. They’re just so different. They’re not about head games. They’re about TACKLING and taking things and needling.

Lately it has gotten worse. Sprout has become his own darling remarkable little self of late, and this new development in his personality has somehow dramatically upped the annoying behaviors towards him from Bean. Which is not to say I don’t get it—because I do. Bean was an only for four years, and now suddenly he’s having to share the spotlight with a little PERSON who is utterly hilarious (his one goal all the time is to make us laugh) and ridiculously cute (he discovered TWIRLING today! A twirling baby is pretty much the cutest thing EVER) to compete with.

The thing is, I’m never quite sure what to DO in response to Bean’s little needling behaviors. Sometimes he’s flat out mean: he’ll squeeze Sprout’s hand hard, or intentionally drive a toy over his foot, and when we catch him he’s remorseful, but not really so very much. And it irks me. Especially because Sprout is just such a love. All he wants is to be next to his brother, and he’s so utterly trusting and playful.

What do you do? Ignore the tussles. Time outs? What? Given that they’re four years apart, Sprout can’t really have consequences even though sometimes that would be the logical thing—at least in Bean’s head. And saying “sorry” isn’t really an action of apology.

I’d love to hear your experiences with sibling rivalry, and about any ways you've found to parent around or through this gracefully.