Dropping the Ball

It turns out it really matters that I take my kid back to the doctor to have his TB test read three days later because if I forget to (like others must have before me, right??), he will have to get another shot in his arm and do it all over again. And the last time he had to get shots, he put his arms inside his t-shirt, knotted his body into a little ball and screamed SO hysterically that four nurses and another doctor stopped by the door just to sympathize.

And it turns out that it really is important to encourage one's child to practice the piano even though I hated practicing as a kid so much that I even fake-practiced, pressing random keys. It very well may be that, if you'd paid attention, you would have noticed that he'd been overwhelmed by the thought of playing with his thumb, and practicing could have rooted him down so that instead of locking himself in a closet when the teacher rang the doorbell and flat out refusing to come out, he would have rushed toward her.

And it turns out that parents need to be ready to leave for school WELL before it's time so as not to sweep through the living room like a cyclone, roaring for shoes and jackets, and biting everyone's heels on the way to the car. This only makes a child cry all the way to school and appear a mess as he clings to his mother in the doorway of his classroom, desperate to be without the hat he forgot, when really he's a mess because he felt scared of his wild storming mother instead of beloved by her.

*sigh*

TB test #2 tomorrow.

On Having More Children

I am sitting at the kitchen table drinking wine out of a mug listening to Silas's piano lesson while Eden, minutes before dinner, feasts on crackers. I desperately need a shower, and a babysitter will be here in 40 minutes, but here I sit, quite content. Ben and I have been involved in our own series of conversations about family and children these days. We, of course, never bring it up with the kids, though I keep waiting for the day when they realize both Ben and I have lots of brothers and sisters and they only have each other. So far so good. But yesterday, appropriately on the day of thinking about motherhood, they both chimed in with their two cents.

While I was trying to talk to my mom on the phone and hear about her Mother's day, Silas screamed and cried and melted into a puddle next to me. Our conversation after I hung up:
Were you acting that way because you wanted my attention?
Yeah.
It's hard to share your mom sometimes.
Yeah, it's really hard. And there are only TWO of us. If there were more, it would be even harder. There are only two and it's this hard!
... Did someone tell you that?
No. I just thought of it by myself.


A few hours later we watched The Sound of Music, and Eden, when she finally stopped covering her ears, was mesmerized.
Finally she said, her eyes WIDE: They have so many sisters... I wish WE could have so many sisters... May we?

They kill me.

little revelation

I have felt harried recently and generally, and haven't been able to put my finger on why, exactly. My mom, a therapist, insists that despite the fact that our bodies can do many things at once, our brains are only able to focus singularly. As an expert multi-tasker, I have debated this with her, but here, mid-week, following several weeks of feeling a low-grade sense of constant rushing, I’ve concluded that she (and scientific evidence) may be right.

My problem, I think, isn’t that I’m doing too much but that I'm doing too much at once. I text while I drive. I talk on the phone while I grocery shop, or while I’m making breakfast, or while I'm trying to herd people out the door. I organize my calendar while I watch Modern Family. And where I come down at the end of the day is feeling insane (code for feeling like I'm not doing anything *well* because, actually, I'm not).

So here sitting in a hot parking lot waiting for it to be late enough to walk into the doctor’s office, I am parked and doing only this. And I feel a little better.

Bed Sitting

I never miss it until it comes. Bed sitting. Growing up, it was a no-brainer -- hanging out with girl friends we inevitably ended up lounging on a bed talking for hours. In college this happened too, since at least for a while, people only had bedrooms. But then, somewhere along the line, everyone becomes adults, and people begin to spend time together only in the living room or kitchen. Bedroom doors remain closed and the spaces become private.

Then one day my sister comes to town, or Mari my best friend from growing up, or Amy my old neighbor, and we find ourselves moving so freely in each other's space that we end up lounging against pillows talking, with a child or two nestled in. I love this -- the cozy comfort of bed sitting conversations. Once I've tasted them, I wonder, again, why we don't have them more.

Tide Pools with KJ and Justin

a poem for today

by Marie Howe:


Easter


Two of the fingers on his right hand
had been broken

so when he poured back into that hand it surprised
him - it hurt him at first.

And the whole body was too small. Imagine
the sky trying to fit into a tunnel carved into a hill.

He came into it two ways:
from the outside, as we step into a pair of pants.

And from the center - suddenly all at once.
Then he felt himself awake in the dark alone.

Eggs

One of the best privileges of 4th grade was making Ukrainian Easter eggs in art class. In retrospect, I am amazed the teacher dared tackle such a process with a room of 9 year olds, but she did, and I'm still grateful. Ukrainian eggs work like a batik -- you draw with wax, then dye the egg a light color, draw with more wax, dye it a shade darker, until you're left with a dark egg strewn with bright designs. I *loved* these eggs. A few years ago I bought myself my own Ukrainan egg kit (Magiccabin.com) and during nap time, sat at the kitchen table with bowls of dye making eggs. This year, when I unpacked the Easter box, I tossed the kit right back in without a thought. No way I'd sit at the table making intricate eggs this year. But to my surprise, Silas found the kit and insisted, so together we sat and drew with wax, watching the egg grow darker with each new color. As many of our joint creative endeavors go, Silas designed and I carried out his ideas. After Eden woke up, we made on more egg and they did all the writing. All an unexpected treat.







one way to fish for the egg...


what her hands looked like all day