From babyhood to boyhood

I like to do this every so often: pause, and capture the expressions of my boys as they happen in real time. It's something that a photograph doesn't capture well: the way their looks are fleeting; the way their moods are like a New England spring: sunny, then storm-tossed, then serene and clear. I used to tell stories about Bean and Sprout here often, until the days blurred together and their growing happened faster than the record I could keep. Like lightening, they are taller, sillier, wiser, more affectionate, and every evening when I come home I look forward to the moment when one or the other of them folds into my arms, their hands dirty, their cheeks smudged, their hair wild.

Lately, I've been taking a little more time to pause and take note. Here is Sprout, at almost 3.5 years old:

Sprout is still the peach he's always been at nearly 3.5. He is boy of smiles and ready kisses. He is abundant in his warmth and contentment, his laughter, his tenderness, and in his loud, boisterous ways. He yells and waves his arms when he talks, as Italian as he can possibly be; and lately he's been known to clock his brother upside the head with a truck if Bean gets bossy on him and tries to mastermind the game they're playing. Yet he is shy and empathetic in equal measure: slow to warm to those he doesn't know, and always ready with a kiss and a heartfelt apology when things go amiss and he's to blame.

This is Sprout: an embodiment of contradictions. Shy + loud. Brave + hesitant. He is determined to fill his own water glass, or climb stone walls or tall trees; yet when it comes to putting on his shoes, or his pajama shirt, he always wants the help.

He is at the delightful age of matchbox car love right now. The patterns on our persian rug under the coffee table in the living room becoming roads; and he's content to play by himself for long stretches of time, driving his cars about on their imaginary journeys. He also loves building snug forts out of couch cushions and quilts to hide in, and boxes of any size suitable to tuck himself into. The world is small and big for him at once; and he's at it's center still: sturdy, delighted, charming, stubborn.

He is my love, my heartbeat, my wild, sweet, tender, second son.

Being brothers

This is what being brothers looks like.

A jar of apple butter. A jar of peanut butter. Two spoons. A completely unsanctioned snack that was Bean's solution to the ravenous feeling they both have at about 4pm.

I decided to instead of saying no, to just hang out and watch them from behind the lens. I like doing this. Sitting back, seeing without interrupting or intervening. Just letting them be their silly selves. I love their unintentionally matched shirts; their nose rubs; their eyelashes; the way their body language is synchronized.

Best decision ever: to have both of them. Brothers rock. They have this bond that makes me feel like they're gonna be okay no matter what. I wonder if they'll feel that way about each other when they grow up? (Is that something that a parent can actually influence at all?)

Tell me about your family. Do you have siblings? Are you close with them? How did that relationship evolve?

No one prepared me for this: The end of my baby's babyhood

He's out in the sandbox, sunlight falling across his cheeks, and I am at the table writing. Through the window I watch him wipe his eye; watch as he rubs sand into his forever long eyelashes. He rubs it again, this time like I have taught him-—not with his sandy fingers, but with the sleeve of his jacket, a hand-me-down his brother wore at three and a half. The sand still clings.

“MAMA!” he yells, eyes close, face upturned. “MAMA!”

I run out in bare feet across the cold November grass, to cup his soft warm cheeks in my hand and brush the sand from his eyes.

“Thank you Mama.” He says, this small exclamation of gratitude something secondary to his nature. He grins as I kiss face, and returns happily to playing. I stand there for a minute, then go back indoors where the maple floors are warm and golden with slanting sun, and my work awaits.

This is the boy/baby who as of Sunday no longer sleeps in a crib. He’s been climbing out for months, agile and sure footed. He’s been swinging with the ease of a gymnast over the railing, in and out, the crib growing less and less sturdy with every vault, and finally I made the decision to put it away.

I didn't expect that he would be terribly sad.

“I’m still da baby!” he wailed that night, sitting on the potty, his face in his hands.

The next night he said, “My new bed is so cozy. The crib went bye bye. I'm big. ” (Yes, he said cozy.)

And just like that, I can feel the way things are ending. His babyhood. And with it an entire span of time where motherhood was straightforward and consuming. Where my physical presence could solve nearly anything; and a kiss could most likely solve the rest.

Now there is separation. There is the complex terrain of emotion. There is getting to know this person he is becoming, beaming-faced, hilarious, stubborn.

Neither of us are quite ready for the way things are inevitably shifting. At the dinner table he's taken to crawling into my lap, wanting to be close to me, wrecking havoc with my dinner plate. Some nights I'm all patience and games: "Here comes a bite for the hyena, the lion, the hippo." Other nights, like tonight, I'm worn thin by the way he squirms, his strong little body knocking me off kilter. But when I set him firmly back in his chair he begins to pout and then cry.

And I know the years to come will pass just like he counts now: “One, two, three, four, five, eleven, eighteen.”

It’s not something I expected or even considered: That it would feel this way to be here, at the other side of babyhood: Bittersweet and uncertain. He’s just shy of being done with diapers, and with that, he’ll be all kid, hair in his eyes, doing tricks on his bike, swinging ling a monkey from his bunk bed frame.

The world narrows so much when you’re in the thick of mothering in the first years—-when your kids are small, and then suddenly the aperture shifts, and they're chest high and learning to read.

How to do this gracefully? This part where I try to stop calling my baby “my baby?”

An autumn glimpse + Do What You Love Shared Stories Feature:

Just wanted to share these photos from a woodland walk with my sweet Sprout yesterday afternoon. It's such a different pace: To go with just him through the woods, noticing, looking, laughing. It was a good break between projects and potty training and school pick up and all the other "shoulds" and "musts" of a busy Monday.

Also, I wanted to let you know that a some of my words + images about creative process and finally doing the work that I love are up over at Do What You Love: Shared Story Series this week.

What work do you love? Does it make it to your daily to-do list?

Breakfast + Boys

This is the last week of my semester. Then a little more than a week to work on my book flat out before projects for the next semester already resume. Cannot believe summer is almost over. Bean has a loos tooth. Sprout has started talking in complex and lengthy sentences all of a sudden. My book is almost done. Time = flying.

What have you been up to?

xoxo!

Today is many things:

Today is many things. It is my half birthday. It is the day my father died nine years ago. It is a day of lavender mountains at sunset, of queen annes lace in the fields fluttering like cut-out snowflakes, of crickets chirring their endless message: that summer is on the wane.

It is also the day that Cookie S. Fish died. This morning he was still swimming, barely. We don’t know why his brief life was so fleeting.

Maybe he was old from the start, when we carried him home in a plastic container at the beginning of the summer. Maybe the heat wave we just had was too much for him: indoor temperatures were in the low eighties for nearly a week. Or maybe inexplicably, it was simply the right time for this tiny collection of gills and bones and fins to die.

Whatever the reason, when T saw that he was dead, we were eating raspberry sorbet after dinner. The boys had rosy mustaches. Bean paused mid spoonful, and looked at the tank with wide eyes and said,

“Maybe can burry him and write a sign that says Cookie Sandwich Fish so that we know where he is.”

“Ok,” I said, “we can do that.”

“What, what happened?” Sprout asked. “What happened to Cookie Fish?”

He scooted off his stool and climbed up by the tank.

“What happened to Cookie Fish?” He repeated. “Why he not up der?” Why he not up a da top?”

“Because he died,” T told him, tousling his hair.

“Dat make me sad,” he said softly. Still looking at the tank.

How he could even know that it was sad, I’m not sure. It’s the first time anything has died in his small life. His brother was still scooping raspberry sorbet, the reality of what had happened hadn’t yet fully hit him, and T and I were both rather neutral. We didn't say that it was something to feel sad about.

Sprout just gets things like this. I’m not sure why. He been like this from the day he was born. I can’t explain what I mean, except to say he’s always been incredibly tender and loving. He's always been exceptionally dialed into our emotional states. He is soulful, and loving with every cell in his body.

After dinner I carried a small shovel up to the rocky bank at the back of the house and dug a small hole. Bean carried the tiny tank out, and suddenly he was in tears. I helped him pour the tank water and pebbles and the small blue fish into the hole, covering it with more pebbles, and then a smooth flat rock.

Bean began to sob, and if sensing his brother needed some space, Sprout backed off, and quietly occupied himself exploring along the rock wall while I held Bean. T and I both told Bean that he’d been a wonderful fish owner, and that we were proud of him.

“So it wasn’t because of me?” He asked.

“No, no honey. You did everything right.” I assured him. Because it’s true. He was awesome. He changed the tank water, and fed him the requisite number of pellets and not a single extra, and he watched him every day. When the fish was well, it would respond to Bean putting his finger on the tank. It would swim up, following the movement of his hand.

“I want to get that crystal rock there, and put it on his grave,” Bean said.

He’s been through this before. One of the amazing blessings of being in a Waldorf kindergarten for two years is that he’s gotten to work on a working farm every week. There, they celebrate and honor the lives and deaths of the animals. It’s a gift to have those experiences, I think. Because it gives them some tools to later turn to, when grief will find them as adults, and it will.

As he wrote on the crystal rock with a sharpie, sobs still coming, I felt my own hot tears on my cheeks.

We’re never ready to lose the things we love.

After T and Sprout had gone inside to brush teeth, Bean and I stayed on the back stoop.

“How come it took so long for him to die Mama?” he asked me, looking up at the sky above us.

“Because his spirit was taking a while to let go of his little body, I think.” I said.

“People are like that too,” he said. “Our spirits don’t want to let go either.”

“I think your right,” I said.

“But I think for fish and for every animal, and for people too, there is a time that’s the right time to let go and then your spirit knows.“

He looked at my face earnestly.He’d heard me talking about my dad while T and I were making dinner.

“Do you still miss your daddy?” He asked.

“Yes, I still do.” I told him.

But it’s different now. Nine years is a span of time that has transformed me. I wish that I could talk to him now because I see bits of him in who I am becoming. He’d be so fascinated by the program I’m in. We’d have the best conversations about it. And he’d be proud, I think, that I’m finding my voice as a writer + artist. That this is my calling now. That my book and art and stories are coming to fruition.

I carry Bean inside.

His legs are suddenly so long. They wrap around my hips, wiry and muscular.

This is time passing. These boys. This love. These moments.

The end of a really good week

We made chocolate chip cookie dough just for eating after dinner tonight; then wandered along the paths T just cut through the meadows. So many flowers. Grass up higher than the boys' heads. Bats swooping low above us. Sundown making everything golden and lavender.

This week was good. It was beyond needed: to have some time with my three boys. To write. To rest. To run. To recalibrate a little.

++

Sprout is suddenly, finally, talking in sentences. "My hands are filfy, Daddy!" he said tonight, holding up flour covered palms after rolling dough out for chapattis with me. Unlike bean who talked in sentences at about 18 months, sweet Sprout has taken his time. But now, in just the last week or two is words are tumbling out nonstop. He makes all of us happy. From the day he was born he's had this buddha presence: he is calm and centered and joy-filled and it rubs off on everyone around him. Bean adores him, even though they fight endlessly over ownership of insignificant objects: long sticks, particular crayons, certain books, matchbox cars.

Bean is all elbows and long legs. He rides a his new bike with gears and hand breaks like a pro, and gets up with aplomb and bravery when he takes a spill on uneven terrain, blood often running down a knee. He's decided wants to grow his hair long. For now we're kind of rolling with it. We lovingly call him mop-head. He wakes up with a tangled shock of semi-curls, and lures Sprout out of bed, and then the two of them come find us. It's still one of my favorite times of day, then, in those first moments of morning when we're all there together, still sleep and warm and trailing dreams.

++

The manuscript is now a complete draft. There are some rough chapters, but everything is there now, in place, in sequence, and my mind can hold it all at once. That's been so hard: I can't really explain it. There is something about the linear medium of the computer that makes it really challenging for me to see all the parts as a part of the whole. I went to UPS today and printed the whole thing at 1.5 spacing with wide margins for marking up. It's about an inch thick, and made things feel real in a way that they haven't until now:I'm writing a book. Really. Truly.

Now, if only I can stay in the groove when I get back into the swing of things at school + work.

+++

PS: I'm craving some new summer tunes. Do you have any suggestions?

Surviving Summer: An In-Progress List Of Little-Boy Awesomeness

In the process of perfecting the art of moon walking, I'm also becoming increasingly adept at wrangling and loving and wrestling little boys. I'm starting to understand that this is a part of my art. This almost-balance, this in-motion gesture of my life towards and away from them in the very same instant. This push-pull, this glorious mess and abundance of giggles, this makes my creative work what it is. Here it is, friends, an in-progress list of little boy awesomeness: +++

* Mud is meant to be played in. Let them. Let the laundry pile up. No one will remember clean laundry; mud monsters on the other hand: totally epic.

* Sink play: faucet on low; funnels, teapots, turkey basters, measuring cups. Science happens here: sink and float, cause and effect. Also, dinner can get pulled together around them. Just remember put towels down first.

* Extra bubbles in the bathtub. So what if their hair doesn’t ever get perfectly clean? There’s always next time.

* Make soup. Give them sharp implements and let them help chop. A 2 yr. old can do a number on zucchini with a butter knife. Also: they’re more careful than you’d think, and growing boys who turn into men who can cook = awesome.

* New couches are overrated. Keep the one you have. Buy throw pillows. Let them build forts. Cardboard boxes are also amazing.

* Chocolate ice cream cones. Yes, let it melt everywhere. If you think ahead, bring wipes. If not, extra napkins + a little water works wonders.

* Let them climb trees. The rules: don’t climb up where you can’t get down yourself; only hold onto branches bigger than your wrist; use both hands.

* Keep cardboard boxes, toilet paper tubes, etc. Supply scissors, duct tape, markers. Instant rocket ship, submarine, motor boat, race car.

* Take a walk with big sticks. Poke things. Draw in the dirt. They wont poke their eyes out. Sword fighting may occur. The only rule: no running.

* Say yes. Keep a marble jar. Point out the positives. Move on.

+++ Now I want to hear your favorite life with kids discoveries. What are your standbys for keeping small people happy while achieving a busy life. Ready, set, go!

I AM IN LOVE WITH THESE BOYS

I am so utterly in love with these boys of mine who tussle over the banana bread muffin batter, giggling, shoving, offering sticky cheeks to be kissed. And I am in love with this man of mine who makes me flatbread with caramelized onions + creme freche + flat iron steak, and a salad of micro greens when I come back from a forever long day.

Yes, yes I am.

His smile is a raft that buoys me up. His love is bedrock.

Some days we spend the whole day gone, sending texts back and forth, missing bedtimes, missing dinner. We encounter each other in the dark among the sheets. I wrap my arms around his back, and listen to the wooden shades clattering in the summer wind.

On the weekends we play french music and sing along. We fry bacon like it's going out of style. We have two double shots of espresso each, mine over milk. We make pancakes made with cornmeal and buttermilk in a cast iron skillet, and Sprout helps pour the batter while Bean sets the butcher block kitchen island with plates and carelessly folded napkins. Forks get strewn like pick-up-sticks. Syrup is amply doled out.

We're all about relishing the sweetness of these mornings, and after we're full we almost always go for a walk.

It always takes longer than we expect. Sometimes we get impatient. Usually I bring my camera. More likely than not there are either puddles or sticks, or some combination of both. The blackberries are hard green buttons on the brambles along the road, and the peonies along the edge of our neighbor's yard fill the air with the most lovely scent in the world. Sheep bleat. The boys chase each other and climb fences. We hold hands.

These moments happen in spite of the pace of things, or perhaps because of it. We make time. We always make the time for us.

These are some moments: full velocity, full of mess, full of grace

It's been a wild tumble of spring-turning-into-summer around here. I'm in the thick of a full, full summer semester. The deadline for my manuscript is looming in early fall. Everything is converging in a miraculous, glorious mess. There isn't enough time. I'm exploding with ideas. The Kickstarter rewards are still waiting for finishing touches that require more than a handful of free moments to complete.

Bean graduated from kindergarten last Friday afternoon with scratched knees, hair in his eyes, and big beautiful grins. Sprout is potty training and asking "why?" and exploring just how much dramatic effect a super cute pouty face can have on us. Our washing machine broke (I overloaded it.) I never manage to put all the laundry away: it sits on the back of the couch, or in laundry baskets and the boys have grown used to rummaging through them for fresh underwear or unmatched socks.

We're all doing the best we can: full velocity, full time. It's an epic, glorious, silly, catastrophic choreography every single day. Some days we barely make it out of the house. Yesterday a tractor trailer flipped on the our road just before where I needed to turn: it set me back by an hour; made me late to a meeting; and yet those long moments waiting in traffic with windows down were moments of gratitude and grace.

Morning comes early now: 4:30 a.m. and the birds are calling. A salt and pepper chicken has gotten broody. We're letting her sit on a nest full of eggs. Beside the coop another poplar fell last week. This spring has been all about thunderstorms and floods and windstorms that keep tearing things up. Our driveway is a mess of ruts. The garden is just barely dug. Dandelions are going to seed everywhere. Dishes wait in the sink.

Before night falls we walk out together to the chicken coop, T and I. Twilight hums with crickets, frogs, fireflies. The sky is already gathering stars. We wrap our arms around each other's waists: this is the first time, close, skin to skin all day. We kiss, we close the coop, we walk back, stumbling over the army of muddy boots, flip flops, sneakers tossed off at the tile by the front door. Later, as I sit at the kitchen table with the windows open, I hear our neighbor banging on a metal garbage can lid: bears, most likely. Last night, it was a luna moth that came, with enormous pale green wings, beating at the screens.

So this is life, now, this month. These are are my moments.

What are yours?

Not enough

I love you.Good morning baby. Go find Daddy, Mommy has to take a shower. Here is your t-shirt. Are you ready to go? Where are your rain pants? Forget it, just get in the car. Good bye. I love you. I love you. I’m sorry I was in such a rush. I’m running late for a meeting. Do you see the river? Let’s run to your classroom. Goodbye sweetie. Have an awesome day. I love you.

*

Hi my little guy! I love you, I love you, I love you. I’m going to get your tummy! Pppppptttt. Hi sweetheart. How was you’re day? Go wash your hands for dinner. Only one cookie. Wipe your face. Yes I’ll play alligator. Go brush your teeth. Please put on your pajamas. Put on your pajamas right this minute. One, two… Yes, I’ll read you that book. It’s you’re last day of kindergarten tomorrow, remember? I love you little guy. Here is your bear. I love you too.

tonight

“Mommy,” he says, sitting up like a small bird in his top bunk, “I just have the feeling stuck in my head that the lightening can strike and kill me. “ I can’t see his eyes, but I know they’re huge; red rimmed from allergies, lashes so long they get crisscrossed when he rubs them.

I’ve been in class since one; in meetings since eight this morning. I’ve had a cumulative fourteen hours of sleep in the past three days. There are circles under my eyes; I haven’t exercised; deadlines still defining every waking hour.

I hear him sniffle, rub his nose, squirm under the covers, his thin torso still propped up on an elbow. I can see his silhouette: he’s watching the window, even though the shades are shut.

I want to snap at: Stop being silly. You’re fine. Go to sleep. I want to plunk the little one into his crib instead of holding him in my lap, rocking as he squirms around, not settled either, also anxious about the storm that has arrived suddenly, just as T drove off for a meeting. I can feel the impatience thick on my tongue.

Instead I take a breath. I zero in. I let the breath expand the place where my ribs join; let my love for these two boys flood me like the storm.

“It’s okay," I say softly. "I’m right here. Mama will be right here,” and then I begin to whisper, “Shush, shushhhhhh.”

And the lightening comes, the thunder comes, the sky grows dark, darker. The windows pelt with rain, and I rock and whisper and then begin to softly sing Brahms’ lullaby, until I can feel Sprout’s body soften, his hair suddenly damp and warm with the onset of sleep. And I keep singing.

I keep singing as the lightening lights up the room, once, twice, six times, twelve. I lose count and keep singing until I can hear Bean settle, curling like a small animal in his covers. I sing until they are breathing in time, steadily, evenly, with the sweet magic of sleep.

My Tuesday Muse

This boy and I get to spend Tuesday mornings together, and how I love this time. He is my muse, this little one. He reaches for the world, grinning, offering joy, laughter, and his face upturned for kisses, cheeks jammy, eyes sparkling. How I love him.

++

Also--My guest post is up over at 3six5 today. Go take a peak. It's such a cool blog--and just got nominated for a Webby!

Utter failings and exquisite truths

It hit me today while I was running that I don’t tell stories here nearly as much as I used to and I miss it, and I can see that you must miss it because the comments dwindle when I post sporadically and tersely with just a few scraps of observation from my day. And the truth is, your comments mean the world to me: not their quantity so much as their depth. I love what you have to say. I love how you see your worlds, and how you see mine. And the truth is, my readers here have saved my life many times over, and I mean that with no hyperbole at all.
When I started this blog six years ago it was my only creative outlet: I’d just move to a new town with my husband and six month old Bean, and I had no friends living within five hundred miles of me, not to mention no friends anywhere with children. This blog was my lifeline. I laugh now when I tell people, but I truly got at least 90% of all my parenting advice for raising Bean from the people who shared their lives through their blogs, and who shared my life by commenting here.
And gradually, I found my voice here, through telling stories about my kids, my muddy dirt roads, my heart full of wanderlust, my hunger for doing more and seeing more and being more; because you were listening.
I dreamed the idea for my book here; I shared the news of Sprout’s arrival here; I spilled the messiness and heartache of tenuous times here and man, I am so, so grateful for the inspiration, insight, and pure awesome that you bring to my life.
All this to say: I want to share more here, not less. I want to keep having this space be a place that I go to find my center: to find my words and hear your words. And it’s sort of slipped off the map a little in the past months because holy hell, grad school is no small thing.

I’m in the midst of cool project for school this week; an interactive documentary, to be exact. (Though if you ask me what an interactive documentary is, I’ll have to say wait and see—because I haven’t found a single example of what it is I’m trying to do. It requires action script code, and video editing, and interviewing, and graphic design and interaction design and animation. See?)
At it’s core is a series of video interviews with local artists who are all utterly brilliant, and intimidating, and awesome. They’re the kind of people I want as mentors. The kind of artists who have made it big time in their fields. The kind of artists who make me proud and terrified to call myself an artist.
I can’t wait to share it, but it I’ve still got a couple of weeks of work; and a lot of learning to do.
Right now it’s pushing me beyond every single boundary I have.
I’m interviewing people I never met; I’m designing a browser interface that accounts for emergent interactions; I’m learning to make lines do what I want them to do in Illustrator. This all but petrifies me.
But mostly the interviewing people I haven’t met part.
I’m good once I get to know someone, but those first awkward moments are a heat flash away from pure agony. Add to that the fact that I’m shooting video (a thing I am learning to do on the fly, as I go) and oh lord. Deep breaths.
Today I interviewed Maura Campbell who is fierce and fiery and passionate about her craft. My batteries died in my HD Flip just before the end; and then further embarrassment ensued because I couldn’t figure out how to open the damn thing. (Thank god for smart phones. I had the how-to googled in under a minute.)
Really. This happened.
And even though I was mortified, I was thrilled, because here’s the thing: I knew, even in the moment, that the battery malfunction I was having was just another way of falling down.
And learning to fall is necessary in learning to fly, or leap, or risk anything. Because it’s the people fall and recover that become rockstars and superheroes. It’s the ones who fall and get up time and again that discover how to make their dreams fly.
And if there’s one thing that has really gelled for me this winter it’s been this:
Falling is ok. Failing is part of the process. Doing both with frightening frequency means I’m pushing beyond my comfort zones, and that I’m learning. Big time.
Also that bravery doesn’t come from waiting for the perfect opportunity or knowing everything in advance, or getting it right the first time. Bravery comes from googling how the hell to open your video camera and replace batteries in the middle of an interview, and then recovering composure.

---

And at the end of the interview when we were standing in her paper strewn office, and she was telling me about how writing is requires being utterly selfish with one’s time, I asked her the question I always want to ask every creative person that I come into contact with: How do you balance this with the rest of your life? How do you do this and children?
And in not so few words her answer was this: you do the only thing that you can. When her kids were small, she wrote, fervently, in the center of the living room as her kids, four of them, twirled around her. When they were bigger, she retreated to her bedroom, leaving them with the warning: interrupt only with blood, or fire.
And that’s what makes her brilliant.
It has nothing to do with balance, with being a ‘perfect’ mother, or with having the right time and the right place to begin. It has to do simply with persisting. . With daring to dive every day towards what you love to do most. Always.
And it was such an awesome interview because I got to be reminded of that.

---

Now we go down the muddy road

You can feel it on days like this: the way everything wants to run. Blood, sap, snowmelt, everything quickening and spilling over.

We go out because there is nothing else we can do. Staying indoors and getting work done is like trying to hold water in my palms; the boys slip out before I can stop them. Sprout barely has his boot’s on and Bean has run away ahead carrying a summer umbrella. I chase after carrying mittens, hats.

The big one is almost flying: wind catching the umbrella as he makes the turn. And from a distance his slight body has lifted off the ground.

I remember.

I once jumped off a toolshed as a girl. There was a wind storm. I held an umbrella high above me. It was the only thing I wanted: to fly. And it seemed so inevitable, so certain that I’d just lift off. I didn't hesitate at all.

I don’t remember falling. Though it’s certain I did because I’m here aren’t I? Or have I just forgotten some secret magic of childhood where flying is less impossible; where dreams blink in and out of reality just like shooting stars?

Now we go down the muddy road and everything is running quick, quicker: our feet, the snowmelt, the sap in every thick trunked tree and slender willow. Under the banks of snow at the edge of the road muddy water rushes: rivulets gathering and spilling, seeking downhill; seeking the eventual streambed, the pond, the river, the lake, the ocean.

The boys are soaked in seconds but giddy with the late afternoon sunlight and the softness of the air. They find sticks to poke in snowy holes; carve miniature rivers; make dams of snow.

Beneath our feet, slush the color of maple sugar. And though it is still long before the purple of crocuses;when I look up I can see the slight red fatness of buds on the maples. A swelling promise. Sweetness soon. And this weekend: daylight savings already.

Two + all the love in the universe

You were the beginning of the rest of my life, little one. You arrived, wide eyed, with a certain calm that has stayed with you. You came with smiles already fluttering; who, and at two months old you veritably beamed. You came to this world loving. It’s your thing, it’s what makes you, you. It’s awesome.

This morning you came to our bed in our still dark bedroom while Daddy was in the shower, and you snuggled with me; your soft hand gently stroking my face. No one taught you this. You just knew it: how to be tender; how to make someone feel the warmth of your big heart.

I adore you. I haven’t spent nearly as many sentences describing our lives with you as I did with your brother because of many things: life is fuller, busier, and there are four of us now. But also because I simply love to be with you, and whenever I can, that’s where I am.

You make us all laugh. You get humor like no other kid I’ve met, in a way that is beyond your years. You’ve got timing, sound effects, gestures. It’s hilarious to watch you string us all on, grinning. We’re all game, always.

You are an athlete already. You love to throw and catch balls; you love to sled; you love to run. You’re at home in your little study body: coordinated, agile, content. And maybe it’s because of this that you go to sleep easily, effortlessly, just a kiss and then you lie down and close your eyes. Today when you woke up from your nap you somehow managed to reach through your crib bars to the book shelf. You occupied yourself this way for almost an hour, quietly, looking at books.

You make things easy. Except for mittens. And potty training.

You are talking a lot now: not long articulated sentences yet; but short phrases: naming everything, saying “thank you” every single time you receive something, saying “I love you” often. You can count to ten, in your sweet little voice, each word sounding like something uttered with marbles in your mouth: soft on the consonants. You sing at the top of your longs.

With you little one, I want the present to last forever. I want you to be the way you are for as long as long. I want this sweetness to last. The way you give drooly kisses; the way you put your own boots on; the way you drink out of a glass all by yourself, casually with one hand. I want all of it to be indelible in my mind, but even as I write you grow, and I know that one day I’ll push back the hair from my face, look up from what I’ve been writing and you’ll be 10.

Happy birthday, my little Sprout. I love you. I love you.

A morning snapshot

So far this morning Sprout has.. ...pushed a stool over to the counter while I was in the bathroom, and started swigging maple syrup from the gallon jug. ...found a package of guitar picks and insisted on me opening them, giving him one, and then taking down a guitar for him to play. ...pushed a stool over to the refrigerator, selected a cup, and attempted to fill it with water (he succeeded. I then figured out how to implement the child lock feature. I'm not sure if I can figure out how to undo it.) ...tried to pour the remainder of the water out in the sink and poured it all over the floor. ...found a dishtowel and mopped up said spilled water, muttering to himself all the while. ....stuck a pacifier down his shirt and got it stuck in the leg of his pants. ...put on funny glasses (above) and made hilarious growling sounds, thereby uproariously cracking himself up. ....asked for foamed milk, and then a spoon to eat it with.

I love him.

The medium

What's different? Do you think that blogs are dying? Sharing about Sprout potty training seems off topic now, oddly. Even though today involved a Sprout + poop + the destruction of his brother's legos story that I'd tell you if we were in person, and I wouldn't have thought twice about sharing it in 2006. Is it just because he's my second and my focus is elsewhere--or is it because the topic doesn't fit the medium any longer? I can't decide.

So I'm curious: what kinds of posts/blogs do you love? What holds you and keeps you coming back?

+++

Second semester has started + I'm getting back in the swing of things.

Some inspiration this week:

Crushing on this mix (good for writing to.)

Twyla Tharp's Creative Habit

And this project (I'm so hoping to knit this into the upcoming weeks. Love, loving all the beauty in this pool.)

Taking this as a challenge. Planning to share my answers here this week.

What does your day look like right now? What are you inspired by in this brand new year?

The best part of my day

Right this very instant slushy rain is falling hard and downstairs, at the kitchen island my boys are playing drums on an array of kitchen implements. They are loud, they are ruckus, they are delighted with themselves. Bean is singing along at the top of his lungs in his thin, sweet, off-tune little voice. Sprout is mostly quiet except for when something is taken from him, and then he hollers as loud as he possibly can. These boys are the sweetness and marrow of my life.

Every morning T wakes up at about 5:30 and when Bean hears him, he comes skittering down the hall to our room and crawls into bed with me while T showers. Often, as the water starts to run, Sprout wakes up and calls, and T brings him to me, and so I doze in magic. One sweet tousled boy head on each side of me. They root around beneath the covers and snuggle in. And I dream, drift, wake, nuzzle in. It’s my favorite part of the day often: these first moments of barely waking with my boys, when we’re all trailing dreams and dozing.

When T is showered, they follow him downstairs for eggs, toast, and frothy milk and I shower alone, drenched with warmth, with the fragrance of soap, with a few moments all to myself.

Then, always, the day begins. Today: gray on gray on gray. Crows make dark silhouettes among the trees. A squirrel knocks snow from the sleeping branches of a spruce. Birds come and go at the feeder; and outside in the snow bank where Bean and I built a fort yesterday afternoon, water drips silently as the snow melts.

Tell me: what is a moment in your day that you spend with the people you love? What's it like?

Also: go watch this.

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.