A weekend away and the photos I did not take

The lilacs are fat; my boys cheeks are sticky with apricots; the lawn is overgrown. Today T. wraps his arms around me at the table. We sit side by side, plotting our next moves while our boys escape out the front door and head to the sand box together. We can see them from the window. They sit side by side in the sand; hair blowing back in the dandelion-down strewn wind. They giggle together, and seeing them this way makes everything worth it. They’ll always have this. I went to NCY for the weekend with a lovely friend whose sister has an apartment on the Upper West Side. I haven’t been to the city since Bean was tiny; and my camera battery died before I could foray out to take many pictures. So instead I offer this:

The pictures I did not take.

The green Central Park lawn strewn with picnic blankets, and above it two bright yellow balloons lifting up; floating beyond the buildings at the tree line and into the blue and cloud flecked sky.

The two girls with red hair ribbons tied around pigtails, running among the picnickers with a pink and blue kite on a short string; feet bare, knees skinned, the littler one stopping to just stare for a while at the bobbing improbable flight of the kite in air lifted by the sheer momentum of her sister’s strong brown legs.

The desiccated crumpled body of the baby blue jay on the sidewalk beneath a tree, legs drawn up, blue-gray feathers crushed into the cement; and the look of revulsion that the lady had, in her enormous black Prada sunglasses, dark skinny jeans and ballet flats, her skin pearly, her hair frosted, her stroller a Bugaboo Frog. She skirted the bird and shuddered, then walked quickly on.

My friend’s face; beaming with emotion that mirrored the sun yellow of his fleece, the two of us seeing each other for the first time in ten years (except in photographs). His profile against the backdrop of the dancing fountain at Lincoln square: curly eyelashes, dreads pulled back, a smile playing on his dark lips,

The view from 230 Fifth at night; an indigo sky and lights scattered like a diamonds in a jewelry box. The Empire State building right there, smack-dab, lit in green and yellow; potted palms, crowds, champagne. Hair blowing in the wind.

+++

I wore a wicked dress, you guys, and I looked amazing. Super heels, a tiny chocolaty shoulder bag, smouldery eyes. I had a few twenty-five year old boys in a state of euphoria and then shock when I spoke to them, then offered up my wedding band as proof. To further the short circuit in their minds I murmured this: “I’m a mom, too.” Best expression ever. Utter disbelief painted over sheer attraction. I couldn’t stop grinning and thanked them after they docilely hailed us a cab.

I needed this. I needed to encounter a part of myself I haven’t seen much of since becoming a mother. Wine, French food, a hot dress, crowds parting just so I could pass. Who doesn’t need a day like this to remind them of what they are?

As though everything that I am is contained in a composite shell of moments hauled about to contain the soft-bodied hermit crab soul that is mine. Right now it feels like I’ve clambered into some new place. Inside a Fibonacci spiral, the sound of the city comes rushing back. It’s endless traffic and hubbub and movement thrums in my eardrums still. Be still my restless heart. Still I am happy to be home.

Happy Mother's day!

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?

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.

A post where I ask the internet parenting advice again

1. At what age is it no longer appropriate to bring your son into the ladies room with you? And if you send him to the boys room himself, how in gods name can you be sure he hasn't touched EVERY SURFACE POSSIBLE? 2. How much sugar does your kid eat daily? Or perhaps better put: what kinds of sweet foods does your kid eat daily? (I've been thinking about this because Bean seems to be sugar sensitive...he's sensitive to everything, so that's not really a surprise...but lately I've been starting to think I'm seeing patterns. Curious about your experiences...)

3. Why do so many mothers stop their children from taking risks--because they are afraid themselves? (Or something?)

EXHIBIT A: Today at the park there was a dad watching a boy and a girl. He let them both climb to the very top of the monkey bars, where they both perched, holding on, happy as clams while other kids rode the zip line thingy below them. Then mom came and dad left. And literally the first words out of her mouth were: "Get down from there right now!" Boy: "Why?" Mom: "Because, you'll fall!" Boy: "How do you know?" Mom: "Because so and so fell, that's why."

ACK. Why do we do this? Why are parents (and possibly particularly mothers) today so different than their counterparts a decade or two ago? What is it about nature, and high places and sharp that seem so terrifying that it's not even worth the supervised risk?

E.B. White in Charlotte's Web wrote about the Fern and Avery swinging out the barn door on the rope swing something like, "All the parents are afraid they'll fall...but they shouldn't be, because children always hold on tighter than adults think they will." (This is NOT a direct quote...If you haven't read Charlotte's Web in a while, you should!) And I tried to remember these words today as Bean spent the entire time climbing across the monkey bars and asking me to lift him up so he could cling to the zip line and fwap from one end of it to the other, his little pale boy belly exposed, his face scrunched up with glee and concentration.

(I'm also loving the Boys Almanac.)

And: Sprout's first time on an outdoor swing today. He couldn't stop giggling. I'm kind of addicted. Seriously cute.

identity::being a mother

To be a mother means to kneel a hundred times a day; to kiss a damp and tousled head after a nap, or to rub away some sticky mark upon an upturned cheek (and to wonder, was that oatmeal, or something worse?) It means pressing my knees into the floor, so I can look into the wide eyes of a small person who knows how to press all of my buttons and also how to unlock inexplicable emotions in heart, and to explain where people go when they die, or about the tooth fairy, or that no, the lollypop displayed alluringly at checkout is not an option. Being a mother means perpetually navigating a fine line between the profound and the mundane—a line I’ve discovered is often at floor level… and it’s there where the tantrums get thrown.

To be a mother means that my hands are always full: with the soft-jelly limbs of my baby Sprout, or with the eager sweaty palms of my Bean, bigger now, perpetually on the brink of dashing out into traffic, or climbing over fences, or scrambling down rock strewn ravines. And just as it means that I am carrying things, it means that my hands magic. With my hands, I accept imaginary cups of tea, paint dozens of pictures, rinse a thousand dishes, type a hundred thousand words.

But maybe it’s really about this: being a mother means becoming adept at the imaginary; at telling stories about monsters, or fairies, or of mice that drive dump trucks.... and its this capacity to imagine that makes enormous, extraordinary, things possible for my children, because I dare to dream them. Just as it’s this same capacity that allows me to imagine a time in the future without sleep deprivation…when my short-term memory will return… (it will, right?) and I'll have just a little more time.

a work in progress

It's been twenty days since I launched A Field Guide To Now, and in those twenty days I have been more intensely creative than I’ve been in over a year. I've been forced way outside my comfort zone. My word for the year was action, and this project has forced me to take action on behalf of my career as a writer and artist in ways I couldn’t have conceived of when I first took the plunge. I've had to learn how to query and research and push the limits of my ability to create at night after small boys go to sleep. I’m working on this book project, my novel, paintings, and a few other big projects that are under wraps with fingers crossed.

(I am also working part time, at a job that is pushing me to learn In Design and Photoshop, always under deadline. The child-free hours of my day are spent thusly: designing ads and view books and writing press releases. The rest of my day is spent juggling, with a single-minded focus pounding in my head like jungle drums.)

I am compelled, determined, wired, moody, thrilled, exhausted, inspired. When I sleep my mind is active in a way that is almost new to me. It’s frenetic and repetitive: gnawing away at the creative tasks I’ve left off from before bed. This past week I’ve begun dreaming of whales—and they’ve inspired some of the newest art for A Field Guide To Now. Here is a glimpse (in progress.) Incidentally, when I looked up what it means to dream about whales, this is what I found: Whale reintroduces us to our creative and intuitive energies to show us a talent we've forgotten about or haven't been aware existed. How spot-on is that?

I’ve had more coffee and less sleep; more wine, more sex, more dreams and less rhythm. I’m spending less time on laundry and dishes (and the house is in probable shambles because of it) and more time perched on the stool in my studio painting, with gauche on my fingers. Less time taking leisurely walks with my boys; more time trying to multi-task while they’re under foot.

It's made me think about my identity, about who I am and how I define that. For a while, after Sprout was born, I slipped wholly into the identity of mother, and felt my world narrow to the small, domestic orbit of that life. It was restful, to be there. For a while. Sprout was such an easy baby that I enjoyed his babyhood in a way that I never fully did with Bean—who cried more and was more needy, just as I was newer and more anxious at the whole mommy thing.

But now, Sprout is walking. Bean is 5. The house is littered with legos (Sprout holds lego helmets in his mouth like a chipmunk. I’ve checked his diaper but he’s never actually swallowed one. Go ahead call me neglectful. YOU just try to keep legos off the floor with two boys in the house, four years apart.) There is a constant stampede of activity and peanut butter sandwiches and glasses of milk that get spilled. The vacuum is out all day long. Money is tight. Bean has outgrown all his pajamas. Sprout is starting to say words.

And.

And in the midst of all this messy, simple, regular domesticity, I’ve begun to long fiercely for myself. For myself not as a mother, but as someone entirely separate from my children.

Truthfully, I’ve always had an uneasy relationship with the definition of motherhood, and now, more than ever, I am enjoying my boys and wanting to be distinct from them, in my own right. A writer. An artist. Right now my mind is preoccupied with the craft of writing, with images, and also about self-doubt, and longing…

How do you define yourself? Where does your definition of motherhood (if you are, or want to be a mother) shape you? What are the words you use to tell yourself the story about your life as it is at this current moment?

The way we dance

Little Sprout: We danced today, you and I.

You wound your way between my knees, around my swivel chair, across my studio floor scattering things about, mouthing everything, drooling, laughing. And I, well, I was busy dreaming; stringing words together, watching sunlight, reading things and feeling hopeful. I was also trying to get just about a hundred things done. Eighty nine still wait, but so? We danced.

You unwound spools of thread and uncased CDs and pulled the contents of every low opening drawer onto the floor: mostly paper, some postcards, a pile of forgotten wallpaper from when we first staked a claim here, in this house. I watched. I reached for you. I picked you up. We twirled. You laughed.

I watched the havoc gathering on my floor and let it gather. I made paragraphs, and sought after things; I discovered, replied, and tried to cover my ears so that the simultaneous voices of optimism and fear would drown each other out. All day I kept going after the things that beg for words and time.

So much is happening right now, and it feels like the moment a crow lifts dark and sudden from a quiet branch, and all around it the air is filled with the sudden, invisible eddies of movement. That is what the moments are like right now. Like flight. Or perhaps the moments just before, when the bird is neither on the branch, or off it, but in motion, lifting off.

We saw a crow like this, later, running. We startled it from a pine; its feathers black and glossy in the sun. You wore a red fleece snowsuit, and hugged a raggedy stuffed moose in the stroller. I ran hard, feeling resistance from thighs that skied all yesterday afternoon. I almost quit a dozen times. The road was mud and slush, and you weigh no small amount, but instead I began to tell you how things go.

In panted breaths I told you how there is always this resistance; how there is always a whispered voice that taunts give up, and you might just fail. And how the only answer is so what?

So I ran until I could feel my heart thunking hard in my chest, and my hands were numb and my cheeks flushed bright red with cold and exertion, and I finished.

By then you were asleep, your head tilting, slack against your shoulder. I carried you inside, and in the sudden warmth you woke, eyes still dreamy, and looked about—smiling ever so slightly when your gaze landed on my face. And so we danced. I held you close, breathing in the fragrance of your warm, rumpled hair. You pressed your cheek against my shoulder, and pulled your knees up and tucked close as though your body still remembers when you grew below my heart, tucked just so.

And so the day went by. Things happened, things got done, your brother came home from his grandparents, the sun set, and dishes accumulated in the sink. And in between we shared the succulent sections of a ruby grapefruit.

You liked each wobbly gem colored morsel, the bitter skin removed, and mushed them in your little hands before sticking them into your mouth. I learned about clipping paths on Illustrator. You pushed a ball around the floor. And today, like every other day, we danced. You are one year old. I love you so.

In case things ever seem too serene:

Last night, post workout, DH and I were both in the pre-dinner hunger coma stage of things, trying to pull together tacos, while Bean was insisting on coloring and baking the Shrinki-Dinks (aren't they toxic or something?) he received in the mail from an aunt for his birthday, and Sprout was walking in circles (yes he's WALKING!!) wailing pathetically. He's cutting a new tooth, just in time for his birthday and he's a snot river and his usually happy-go-lucky personality has been somewhat diluted as a result.

So anyway, you can picture the scene right? Well. Then picture this: Me pouring Sprout a sippy cup of milk and in the split second (everything happens in those split seconds!) I turned to reach for the top, he reached up to his high chair tray and grabbed the full cup and proceeded to gasp and gulp and sob--but not tip the cup upright again--as he poured the entire contents onto his shocked little face. (I'm not used to him walking yet--and didn't even know he could REACH his high chair tray. Oh dear.)

I just stood there not sure if I should begin wailing myself, or laugh (I chose the latter.) He had milk in his ears, people. In his eyelashes, down his shirt. You'd think it had been an entire gallon--the way the floor was covered.

So anyway, I know I sometimes get kind of serious and poetic here and I wanted to make sure no one's getting any ideas that it's totally zen and serene here all the time. Because it is so not. (As I write, Sprout has pulled a basket of toys onto his head. NOTE TO SELF: Stop putting things on shelves to get them out of his reach!)

And also: please, please go take a peak at A Field Guide To Now and back this project! I get between 5-10,000 unique visits here a month--which means if you, brilliant, awesome readers would each go and back $1 the funding goal would be reached. It's all-or-nothing funding--which is a cool concept, but totally nerve-wracking at this point as I watch the number of days count down. (I want this more than anything.)

+++ PS: it's Sprout's birthday tomorrow. Can you believe that? A ONE year old. Sigh...

Catching up:

Doing: Whoa, it’s been one heck of a couple of weeks with both kiddos underfoot. Lots of sledding and cookie baking and general revelry. Not enough writing though. Or painting. Or time without the ruckus, giddy, non-stop noise making of two small boys.

Speaking of: Sprout is standing and almost walking. He's thisclose. He's hilarious. He plays hide and seek. He initiates chase games around the house and crawls pell-mell at top speed, then bursts into adorable peels of laughter. I tried to teach him to paint a few days ago--because I did with Bean at around this age, and it was an utter disaster. He ATE the brushes and got so frustrated when I'd take them out of his hand and try to turn them around so the bristles went on the paper. So not his thing.

Bean on the other hand is totally into drawing. He makes airplanes and houses with doorbells wired in to the walls. Tonight he drew a picture of our cat stalking mice. Each mouse had a lovely, loopy, curly tail. I can't really believe that he is almost five and suddenly all cool and adorable: a big+little mashup. Yesterday he said, "When I'm big I'm gonna build robots. I'm going to design one to be a remote control that I control--and then another robot that the first robot controls." He's like that. Totally coming up with the coolest things ever. An engineer in the making.

Reading: it's been haphazard at best this week. Mostly about the end of the world as we know it. Which really is rather unsettling . Though not entirely hopeless. I'm already thinking of what my garden will look like this spring.

Wishing for: a few solid hunks of time I can call MY OWN to get things crossed off the to-do list and sink back into writing and creating and feeling like myself again. Eating: I've perfected pizza dough and a really great bread recipe. I'll share both, but not tonight. Somehow it's bedtime already. Where did the day go?

+++ Wondering tonight: what do you worry about? What are your greatest fears--the big, worst-case-scenario ones...and the little ones that nag and gnaw?

Boys & simple delights

I always pictured this, and yet I could never have imagined how it really is: life with boys. My house is always a ruckus. Things are always flung, spun, twirled, jabbed. Sticks are essential. So are rocks. Forts are made everywhere. The couch is a launch pad. Trees are dangled from. Boxes are magic. They become boats and cars and rocket ships; they are played in and fought over and sawed into with serrated knives.

Each morning I wake up to the full catastrophe delight of little boy energy. Inevitably I get a finger in an eyeball, or an elbow to the ribcage. “Mommy! MOMMY LOOOK!” But by the time I do, Bean has already dragged a giggling Sprout out of my room, down the hall and into his bedroom, where I can hear thumping and banging and more laughter.

Bean is growing tall. He grew 3/4ths of an inch in the past month! Sprout is standing on his own, cruising everywhere, cutting teeth. He is hilarious. He does things purposefully just to make us laugh. He loves to bang on things: pots, cupboards, boxes. He loves music. He loves his big brother, and he beams whenever Bean enters the room. But he’s also a tattle tale—already. He makes this particular fussy sound whenever Bean takes something from him, or even just gets close enough that he might take something from him. He is absolutely, one-hundred-percent a Mama’s boy.

My sweet second son. We’re so smitten for each other, and truthfully, every single day I still kind of wish he’d stay small for a lot longer. I love to snuggle with him. I love the sleepy moments just before I tuck him into his bed at night. I love when he first sees me after I’ve been gone for the morning. I love how he gets such a kick out of everything: standing, eating, sticking his hands in the dirt.

That said, I’m much less of a wimp with him. I want him to sleep through the night now. He’s huge (really: as in, 18-24 month clothing is snug on him. SNUG.) and he has no reason to wake up four times just to tap into a boob for five minutes, although I can’t blame him for trying. It must be nice, little man. Sorry to cut you off. So last night there was more fussing and less sleep as he adjusts to going back to sleep himself. He was indignant at first, but a trooper, and figured out how to find his pacifier & snuggle in and go back to sleep after a couple minutes of fussing. And already it was easier than the night before. By the end of the week I think we’ll be where I want us to be (as in, one or both of us will be getting five or six hours of sleep at a go!)

Aside from the whole sleep deprivation bit, which gets old, I admit, I’ve been having so much fun this month with my boys. All three of them. And even though money is tighter than it’s ever been, it is quite possible that I’m enjoying the holiday season more than I have in years past because it’s been all us, as a unit. Without the pressure to buy things—the holidays become all about shared activity, small rituals, adventures, crafts, and food.

We’ve already made a batch of gingerbread cookie dough; strung oodles of lights; and cut more than our share of snowflakes. Bean loves to do paper crafts. He memorizes the folds easily and delights with cutting each snowflake and then opening it up—each one a glorious surprise of symmetry and pattern. Sprout watches, delighted, trying to eat every paper scrap that falls to the floor.

Each morning we all look forward to the excitement of Bean scurrying out to see what the advent fairy has tucked into a little box for him: a tiny slinky, some balloons, a golden chocolate coin, a small crystal, silly putty, umbrella straws. It’s a lesson for all of us to remember: how much delight comes not from the actual gift, but from the suspense and mystery of each small box. It’s all about the ritual, the gesture of fun, and the small delightful moment of surprise. What are some things you do as a family together this time of year?

Learning to fly

We make paper airplanes. A fleet of them tossed into space after dinner, twirling, looping, landing on the hardwood, on the couch cushions, on the edges of ledges and windowsills. Our hearts on our sleeves, laughter filling the living room, as the cold autumn night crowds in around at the windows and Sprout chases after each one, newly crawling, hands going fwap, fwap, fwap across the floor. This is my life, I think. These boys, these moments. What does it matter that I’ve missed a deadline I wanted to meet, or that tiredness makes me stupid some mornings? Everything that really matters is in this room tonight. “Here, I’ll show you how fold one,” I say to Bean, not really believing that he’ll be able to follow my lead, and remembering second graders I’ve taught who have burst into tears with frustration, not able to follow the same sequence of folds.

“Really?” he grins. Then he sits on the floor with a stack of paper, his legs folded behind him on the floor like a little frog.

He watches intently, copying every fold.

First a rectangle, then the nose folded in to make opposing triangles, then the whole thing in half, then the wings folded down. Symmetry and sequence matter now. He breath is shallow, intent.

“Let me try it again,” he says after we toss our new planes high and watch them land. Sprout squeals in delight. A candle still flickers on the dinner table. Night is here, making the window glass into mirrors that catch our grins.

I watch him as he makes another, all himself. The entire sequence of steps folded from memory, after only being shown twice. And his plane flies beautifully. It lifts improbably, air pushing up under the flimsy paper and carrying it up to the ceiling before it swoops down, twirling in arbitrary circles before landing at his feet.

His grin is bigger than the room.

My grin is bigger than the room.

This boy, this beautiful boy of mine, teaches me so much. He challenges me at every turn to grow, to become more organized, more intentional, more prepared. He is my mirror, revealing the fragile and haphazard parts of my being that dangle and drag like dropped stitches. Where I am weakest, this is where parenting him forces me to grow the most.

I can’t coast, parenting him. He never gives me the chance to sit back on my laurels and get comfy. He questions everything. He is always pushing me to the edge of my comfort zone. He’s a kid who seems porous to me: the entire environment saturates his little being. He soaks everything up. Watches everything. Asks about everything.

He sees a thing once, and remembers it, classifying it with other similar things: the makes of cars, the inner workings of tractors, street signs, logos, maps. He has a particular obsession with learning new words and he insists on using them again and again until they blend into his daily vocabulary. Words like scenery and astounding, and investigate.

He is never content with the simple answer. He is always full force, full throttle, determined. He is fragile. He is allergic (to dust, grass, pollen, pets.) He is picky. He is persistent. He is easily overwhelmed by sensory stimulation. He exhausts me.

And I’m starting to get it: this boy of mine might be one of the most profound teacher’s I’ll ever know.

Not a morning poem at all

So. I think my short-term memory and my general ability to hold my shit together may be forever altered by the permanent lack of sleep that has become a fixture in my life, post babies. Exhibit A:Last week I left my cell phone on the roof of my car and drove away. I watched as it flew off and did a lovely flip in the air before landing on the road behind me. I pulled to the side, cursing, with Bean wide eyed in the back seat, and threw on my emergency blinkers (do they have some other word? I'm sure they do, but I cannot remember it. See--shit has been lost, people.) I then dashed back to retrieve it, hoping that at the worst it would be scratched but still functional. But of course, it landed in the effing middle of the road and an SUV ran it over just before I was able to dash out into two-way traffic to rescue it. SMASHED beyond repair.

Bean kept muttering, "This is terrible. This is soo terrible." All the way home.

Maybe this happens to everyone, and perhaps it is what some people gently refer to as GETTING OLD, but I'm only THIRTY ONE, people, and I and should have more of a capacity to remember things and generally keep my shit together than I have recently demonstrated.

Exhibit B: This morning I put my coffee cup on the roof of my car.

You'd think I would have learned, right?

Nooo. I drove off in oblivion only to slam on the breaks and come to a lurching stop at the bottom of our rather steep driveway as my coffee cup hurtled down my windshield. What the eff? Then I had to listen to Bean mutter about how his view was ruined by my frozen coffee splattered across his window.

It's a little bit more than my view that's been affected, BUDDY.

Exhibit C: While I remembered HIS jacket and hat and mittens for school this morning, I somehow managed to leave the house without so much as a vest, and it was COLD this morning. As in the first frost of the season happened last night. This situation was then made worse when I went to buy bagels and proceeded to spill the entire contents of the worst latte of my life (from here--don't ask me why I even ordered one!) onto my lap.

Cold? Check. Wet? Check. Shit completely lost? CHECK.

Please tell me this changes. Please.

Weekly Crushes

It seems like it was just a couple of weeks ago that I was clipping Bean into his ski boot bindings for the first time and sending him down the driveway. Now the first leaves are already golden and orange. Where has the summer gone?

The crickets know that snow is on its way. In the garden, fat pumpkins with girths rounder than Bean's hugs. My Bean, who has started a mixed-aged (Waldorf) kindergarten program, and comes home singing. My Bean who tells us about the enormous imaginary kangaroo that lives upstairs. My Bean, suddenly a big-little kid. Four and a half. Mischief around every turn. He is my favorite forever.

And then my baby boy, my little Sprout, coming up on 7 months old, impossibly. He is a chunk. Pure love. Grins always. He's been surfing the floor the past week or so, trying to crawl. In between attempts he's pleased as peas to sit in the center of a circle of pots and spoons, banging things and grinning. He's always cracking himself up. There are so many times throughout the day where I'll look over at him and feel my heart catch and then expand. He'll be smiling at me, watching me from across the room as I do things in the kitchen or fold laundry or type. He is my little Buddha. My reminder to be right here, now, in this precious, precious moment. He is my favorite always.

Also, some weekly blog crushes to share:

2 or 3 Things, Bliss, Le Love (can't help going here and smiling), listing quirks over at Cupcakes & Cashmere...(a quirk DH pointed out tonight while we rocked it in the basement gym---3 miles in 24:15 minutes---is that I love to watch bull riding. Really.)

Also, these houses (still brooding over treehouse plans, as you can tell.) This gorgeous little party. This amazing installation. It's how my heart feels, sometimes, lately. Overflowing, made of feathers, of air, of fragile things.

What are some of your crushes right now? Share please. Also~ what are you looking forward to this week?

Little Boys

1. Treehouse, 2. Treehouse, 3. MAJ_The Ultimate Tree Fort II *, 4. 2nd February 2007, 5. Tree House, 6. DSC00145

We're building Bean a tree house and we're discovering that it's uncharted territory. DH never had a tree house. I grew up climbing trees with my sisters, and there were certainly a few make-shift tree forts that are scattered throughout my memory, but never a real honest tree house with a ladder and a roof.

Because neither of us have real experience we seem to get sucked into substituting nostalgia in its place, with dire consequences. Having spent most of my childhood with scraped knees and in trees, I picture a helter-skelter little tree nest tucked up in some branches with a few log stairs nailed into a tree trunk. DH's childhood was all about suburb sidewalks and and swimming pools and green lawns, so his image of the perfect tree house includes functional windows and an shingled roof.

Thus far we've settled on a platform built between three trees within eyesight of the kitchen window. Bean wants two stories, and a secret tunnel. I want to use logs from our property. DH wants everything to be built with two-by-sixes and six inch screws. We're a mess.

Really, I'm a mess. I am outnumbered, and this is becoming more and more apparent every day. I have no idea what to do with little boys, I am discovering. They are not like little girls (though apparently this might be my fault.) They like to be LOUD. They like to smash things, and run really fast, and make skid marks with dirt bikes and dangle from tree limbs. They like to make plastic alligators eat the heads off of Lego people, and they like to make sharks attack. They like to have their pancakes in the shape of monster faces, and if you make beets and polenta into a similar design (with the beets for bloody teeth) they will acquiesce and devour them.

Other than that, I have no idea what to do with little boys. Or specifically my little boy. My frog-catching, fearless, stubborn, shy, determined, goofy little boy who loves to use every 'big' word he hears, and who has an opinion about every single thing under the sun.

Take naps for example. What do you do with a little boy who is determined that he is beyond naps, but still desperately needs them? He becomes the monster when he's overtired--which is almost every afternoon. And what about refusing to wear certain articles of clothing? Or arguing about brushing teeth? Or? Basically, help. Mamas of boys, I need a primer, STAT. What are the top five most important things I should know/learn about parenting little boys? Because clearly, I'm in for it.

And also, about that tree house... What's your idea of a perfect tree house? What's essential? What's overkill?

A kind of love letter

Sprout is six months old. Already. I feel a lump at the back of my throat when I write those words. When I think of him, the space inside my ribcage hardly feels big enough to contain the feeling I have for him: like a thousand rainbow helium balloons all lifting, lifting skyward.

I want to record every moment with him because every one is fleeting, but I haven’t. There are pictures, yes, but only a few quickly scribbled notes here and there that mark the passing of his babyhood —because the truth is this: I am greedy with my time with him.

I want every single moment to last.

I want the smell of him forever: soft, inexplicably sweet; the essence of these baby days when we’re curled together in the morning before our little world wakes up and the day begins, a ruckus of matchbox cars and giggles from Bean; a hot shower; the espresso grinder running.

I want to be able to forever feel the roundness of his soft darling belly, like a little fat moon when he stretches out.

I want the way he smiles at me—like I am the moon, the sun, everything at once—to go on for eternity every single time.

This has been the gift of my second son. He has allowed me to slow down and linger in these moments of early motherhood. Instead of writing about him, as I did with Bean (when I was always anxious for the next phase and in need of reassurance) I curl around him after I’ve scooped him up from a nap.

He nurses, then grins up at me and smacks his lips with satisfaction and I whisper to him, leaning close until my lips brush his babysoft cheek. I whisper about how I love him until he falls back asleep for a few perfect moments, a smile playing on his lips.

He is impossibly sweet. He spends every day grinning at everyone. He nap, he sleeps at night, he waits patiently for food, or a diaper change. He is content to play on the floor or in a laundry basket, or anywhere—as long as it is near me, or his big brother. He has just learned to sit. He is starting to crawl.

This second boy of mine has taught me something I never imagined I would learn: to mother with a kind of grace that first-time motherhood cannot afford.

I have learned that the laundry can wait, and that the dishes and bowls and pots in the sink will return to their state of clean or dirty regardless of whether I do them first, or often, or last. What matters most are kisses.

I have learned how to wait a beat before reacting with panic or frustration when he begins to cry juuust before going to sleep, and in that moment of pause I take a breath and can see how he feels this. How his body becomes soft and relaxed. How sleep comes if I give it a moment.

I have also learned that baths aren’t as essential as maybe I believed they were, and that pajamas are overrated—whatever onsie and pants he has on will do; and that making baby food is not complicated, and that with a food processor anything is possible.

I couldn’t have imagined this. I remember thinking that there was no way that I would really love him as much as I loved his brother. It was a real concern of mine. I imagined that my heart would be too small. That there wouldn’t be room in it after all the love I already had for my lanky-limbed Bean. I imagined feeling stretched, overdrawn. I didn’t believe there would be space to spare anywhere in my heart for loving some other little boy too. But oh, how I love, I love him, I love him.

This is what I know today

To be a child means living wonder, without knowing wonder is a concept, an abstraction.

I was a star before I fell down into your tummy, Mommy, Bean tells me. We’re on his bed, the blue Hawaiian print sheets in a rumple, the lights dim, twilight outside.

Everyone dies, he says but we don’t stay dead. We go up to heaven and then we come back down again as a new baby.

Live Blogging Thursday

Hi Thursday. I've been off in my own world lately, doing things. One of the things I have been doing is trying to sort out some issues with my blog and the funky charset issues that occurred with an upgrade to a newer version of Wordpress. As a result I've been going through my archives, and holy moly I've been blogging a while. This is the 901 post on this blog. Crazy, right? Anyway, what I realized is that I love reading my older posts that just capture whatever we were doing that day, right in the moment. Maybe they are banal moments, but they are ours and I like the record. I like seeing where we were, and where we are now, and lately I haven't been doing nearly enough of that here.

So. Today. LIVE BLOGGING. I'm going to update this post a bunch throughout the day as Bean and Sprout and I gallivant and get ourselves into situations. I would LOVE for you to join in and live blog your day too. Leave a comment with a link to your post if you do.

9:32 A.M.: This is what our morning looks like often. The boys hanging out together doing things. Sprout has just started rolling over back to tummy (he's been doing tummy to back for a while) and with this whole new range of mobility he is tearing things up! Bean likes the company.

Breakfast. This is a classic for me: toss two pieces of bread with ample butter into a pan. Crack two eggs on top, any old place. Cook the whole mess. Eat. The toast is dreamy. Buttery and crisp. The eggs are hard, which I like. Also a latte.

Now we are off to carve sticks and build fairy houses in the back yard while Sprout naps.

1:20 P.M. Harder than I thought to keep up with our active family & actually post pictures!

From the morning fairy house making: Bean was very serious about using the pocket knife. He sharpened the ends of sticks to poke into the moss to build the structure. We gathered small stones and shells and field flowers. When you stop to look, even the most humble clover astounds.

When we came indoors we had slice after slice of cantaloupe and then went for an impromptu raspberry picking adventure with DH. Bean raced up and down the rows, eating more berries certainly than he picked. Sprout sampled some too, and didn't seem to have any complaints. I am picturing some type of raspberry cobbler for dessert tonight.

Now Bean is napping and Sprout and I are hanging out in the back yard. The end of summer crickets have begun their ruckus, even though it has only felt like summer for the past week. We've had so much rain, these days of warm and gold have been balm to our damp spirits.

Next up: exercise, a swim at the pond, and making dessert.

How has your Thursday been treating you?

3:25 P.M. We just had the best swim. I am slowly but surely teaching Bean to swim in the neighbor's pond. I didn't bring the camera--one too many things to haul! But he was great and giggly and super cute. He put his head under and kicked gorgeously and tried many times to push off from the side and paddle to me. He'll be swimming by the end of the summer, I think.

Where is everyone today?

10:39 P.M. It was a perfect day. Not every day turns out like this, but I am happy that this was the day I picked to keep my camera close at hand and record moments.

After our swim at the pond DH and I worked out, Sprout watched and Bean painted.

Then Bean and Sprout did some chilling out with books.

Then dinner. Pasta with fresh basil, oregano, chives, tomatoes, olives, and sausage.

And the best raspberry cobbler ever. EVER. (so easy to make: 1 c. flour + 1c. whipped cream folded together with 4 tsp. sugar for the crust--apply in lumps over 2 pints raspberries w/ 1/4-1/2c. sugar and 4tbs butter cut into small pieces. Bake at 375 for 45 minutes.) DIVINE.

I loved reading the comments today. There is something so fascinating to me about the minutia of life. I am really looking forward to some of you doing some live blogging too. A peak into your world as it unfolds.

5 months old

Sprout is 5 months old today.

He is perfect.

Sweet things

Things that I loved about today: figs & raw honey, a four mile run (!) and a swim in our neighbor's pond. Oh how I love to swim...and somehow I had forgotten this. I don't know why it's taken me three years to go and jump in, the surface rippling green, bluebirds swooping about. How I love the soft feel of the pond bottom underfoot, the way the water is soft on your skin, the way the bubbles rise up when you kick. Bean and I have gone every day this week. We lie like otters on the little wooden dock, and then we swim.

He doesn't know how to swim yet, but he's becoming more daring: leaping from the bank into the water into my arms. His grins, his chattering teeth, his little muscled torso nearly break my heart. He is so lovely, so beautiful, my son. My firstborn boy, so big now: learning to swim.

On his bike he is a terror. He's been riding without training wheels for months and now he purposely seeks out the washed out, steepest places on the driveway, the bumpiest pot-holes to ride over full tilt. He's a mountain biker in the making: the way he skids to a stop, leaps off his bike, swings back on it, all the while grinning, mud splattering up the back of his shirt, his yellow thunderbolt helmet the perfect statement.

Boys. Even though I imagined boys I couldn't have pictured this. The delight and silliness of little boys. The way they play together makes me nearly swoon with pleasure. Bean seeks out Sprout, he wants to be near him, next to him. He 'reads' him books, acts out entire narratives with matchbox cars, sings endless little songs, lies noes to nose with him. And all the while Sprout grins like he's having lunch with his idol. It's the best, the way my boys are together. I want more than anything for them to stay this way. For them to always be buddies and friends, for Bean to always have Sprout's back. For Sprout to always burst into wide smiles when his brother enters the room. It makes me so happy.

Bean asked if he and Sprout could share a room recently. We have 3 bedrooms, so they wouldn't have to necessarily, and it hadn't really occurred to me to have them share. But now I'm wondering, why not? What are the pros and cons? I always had to share a room with one or the other of my sisters, and while I am sure they hated it (sorry I stole all your clothes, sis!) I adored it. Not always, but most of the time. I loved going to bed and having a sister to whisper with, and waking up in the middle of the night and hearing her breathe. But now as a parent I'm not actually sure how to orchestrate room sharing--with boys who are four years apart. How would bedtimes work?

So. Questions: what were the highlights of your day today? And: yea or nay on the shared-bedroom business?