Loverly

I had a rare (for these days) leisurely(ish) chat with Eleanor this afternoon. The boys & I had headed over to Ballantine Road to make salt dough ornaments and drink some expired chocolate milk Mom had picked up on the cheap at Sahara Mart. While we were waiting the two hours the ornaments needed to harden in the oven, Eleanor came in from work.

Conversation turned, as it does with us, to looks.  She asked me if I felt beautiful--conventionally beautiful. I said certainly not. I told her about being at a concert some years ago and seeing a woman in the choir who looked very much like me--everyone in my party noticed it. She wasn't beautiful, but somehow seeing a face rather like mine on someone else helped me make my peace with my own. If that's (sort of) what I look like, I can live with it.

What I didn't get out, though, is how my response to beauty has been changed by my children. I love to look at their faces so much that I lose all context, all possibility of reference to external standards. Are they beautiful children? I really haven't any idea. All I know is that I can look at them--their round, tender cheeks, the whorls of their hair,  their skinny shoulders and outrageously Greco-Roman buttocks (which, let's be clear, I see a lot of)--with the avidity with which I used to read fashion magazines or watch exquisite French movies. Their eyebrows--each boy's so different! so eloquent!--tell stories to me as good as Trollope's and Austen's.

Part of it, I guess, is pure vanity. I like what my children look like so much I can't help but warm up to me, to whom they bear some resemblance. But it's mostly not that, I think. I remember the breath almost being knocked out of me, just after Eleanor was born, when I realized that every single person I saw on the street or at the store or anywhere had been born, too--had arrived as extraordinary a visitation. I felt it was at least possible to love almost anyone, just because I loved Eleanor. And now when I look at other people, I am much more likely to see how beautiful they are, because I love so much to look at Henry and James.

Group portrait, with dog ears.

growing up

The boys started school last week, and both are showing evidence of new ambitions (which is a bit dashing to my pet educational theories, but at least it's a firmly play-based school). Henry has been fired up about "spelling" ("Mommy, I'm thirsty for some r-r-g-n-r-a"), has begun drawing recognizable dinosaurs, and spent considerable time this evening crafting a Redcoat costume for Halloween out of a green tee shirt, post-it notes, and strips of paper.

James's ambitions are less academic, but he is newly committed to doing things for himself. He proudly told Peter this evening, for instance, that he had poured out his own milk. "I got out the milk, and I took off the lid, and I poured the milk in the cup, and I didn't spill any!" he boasted.

"Wow," said Peter. "You are getting more and more grown up."

"Yes," agreed James. "Now I'm ready to use a chainsaw."

First peach of the season

My next band name, or at least what we'll call the guinea pig

James had astronomy on the mind this morning, and he wanted to talk to Peter about the "vegetable of lights."

With a little Q & A, Peter was able to translate--festival of lights--but he wasn't much forrarder as to what was meant.

James elucidated: "Roly-poly Alice."

Which translates, in case you didn't catch that, to aurora borealis.

The way we live now

Camptown Races as arranged for electronic keyboard has just played for the 247th... 248th... 249th time since I woke this morning, while James dances in a circle around the living room ad libbing worker lyrics (e.g., put the gravel right there, hammer, hammer, hammer!, workers eat oatmeal). Please... send... help...

Portrait of the artist as a very young man

The boys were drawing this morning while I did laundry.
Henry came into the back room to show me his picture of a bus.
"Who's this?" I asked, pointing to the driver, who was something of a cipher.
"James."
"And this?" pointing to the passenger, a much more vivid character who was grinning maniacally.
"James!"
We went into the green room to discuss it with James, the original.
"Oh no! James, what's wrong?" cried Henry.
James was lying on his side between the folds of the comforter, arms outstretched and back arched in an ecstasy of despair, moaning.
The paper he had been drawing on was cast aside and his only reply to Henry was a louder moan.
"James?" I asked. "What is it?"
He took a deep, shuddering breath.
"I ... don't ... know ... how ... to ... draw ... a ... hammer."

This morning in the treasure chest, before wrestling with his demons.

Mother's Day

I would prefer to be the sort of person who doesn't care a bit about Mother's Day, but the fact is I really like being feted by my family. I hope I never turn into the old woman stewing over the flowers no one sent me, but god only knows what I might come to.

At any rate, today I had no grounds for complaint, however unreasonable. I was surprised at breakfast with a perfect mix of presents: something the whole family stands to benefit by, something improving for me (it's both annoying and encouraging that Peter believes I can organize myself into writing a bestseller), and something purely indulgent. Henry and James and I dug up some raspberry starts to take to Mom, and Henry helped her plant them. And this afternoon...

...I got to lounge in bed reading an enthralling book...

...and then to make shepherd's pie for supper at a pottering pace.

Too many people I care about are spending their first Mother's Day motherless this year, and as I know from the infuriating lousiness of Father's Day, it needn't have been a holiday observed in one's particular family to hurt like hell. It might escape my nearest and dearest, with whom I am far too often tetchy, but I am thankful--only the word doesn't cover it--down to the grubby soles of my feet for my sleepless, tearful, mud-crusted, transforming, and surpassingly sweet experience of motherhood. And I am equally grateful for my own stubborn, moralizing, cranky (I come by my tetchiness honestly!), nutty, wise, and loving mom.

Geology field trip

Hunting for fossils at Sherwood Oaks park, inspired by his first celebrity hero, Dr. Scott.

More interested in chucking fossils than in hunting them, as of yet.

Overheard on the near west side

James, to Peter, as Peter was holding him wrapped up in a towel after his bath: "May I zip about?" I received this with so much enthusiasm the first time that it has already become a catchphrase with both boys.

James also now habitually runs naked from the bathroom after washing up and declares, "Here comes a fresh, clean guy!"

Henry, who has embraced science, to James: "How many atoms do you think are in a grain of salt?"
James: "Twelve."

Henry is also very interested in considering what objects of various sizes might look like to a flea. "This boot would be like a house to a flea!" "This house would be like a skyscraper to a flea!" "A skyscraper would be like a million hundred mountains to a flea!" Peter also enjoys this line of speculation, and he and Henry discuss with interest how many fleas, standing one on top of another, would be as tall as the tire on the neighbor's pick-up truck, and whether a flea's height, properly measured, should include its legs, and how it might feel to be the flea at the bottom of the stack.

Next time, how about you take them out for ice cream?

I was sort of desperate all weekend for solitude and costume drama, so after dinner tonight, Peter took the boys for a walk--in Rose Hill Cemetery--while I enjoyed, modestly, half an hour of B-list BBC. As soon as they returned, Peter slung Henry over his shoulders and carried him into the bathroom for a sorely needed hair-washing. James came and joined me on the bed.

"Mommy, what is in that black thing in the cemetery?" he said.

"What black thing?"

"Henry said it has bodies in it. Why do people's bodies get buried when they die? I don't want to get buried."

"Oh, well, sweetie--"

"Am I going to die, Mommy? I hate dying, you know."

"Oh, darling, yes, everybody dies. But it probably won't be for a very, very, very long time."

"Will Daddy die? But I like Daddy!"

"Yes, Daddy will die."

"Will you die, Mommy? Will Henry die?"

"Yes, sweetie, all people die, everyone of us will die one day. We hope it will be when we are all very, very old."

"But I don't want to get buried. I don't want to go in a hole."

Here I tried to propose some distinction between body and spirit--the inner James--in a fashion too piffling even to attempt to transcribe.

"But I love my body!"

"I love your body too!" I said, and gave up trying to do anything more in this conversation than doggy-paddle.

"I hate dying!"

"Dying is sad, but, somehow, somehow it really is all right. It's just what is."

"But you know, Mommy, workers sometimes go under the ground to dig pipes. So maybe I like to go in a hole, like a worker." James can be persuaded these days to do almost anything, if only you can make him believe it's a worker-like thing to do.

The only possible end to this shattering conversation was a shameless love-fest, which duly ensued. Ten minutes later, both boys and I were playing a game that involved their riding in the air on my knees, demanding to know if they could eat butts, eyeballs, and poopoo for breakfast, to which I replied in a voice like Geraldine McEwan that the only acceptable options were eggs, oatmeal, and yogurt, on "gurt" sending them flying into the air. Hilarity abounded. Five minutes after that, James found his before-bed snack of plain yogurt one too many for him, and I had to stop him as he was trying to subdue the gobbet that was dribbling down his pajama front by smearing it onto the floor.

In the past three days, I have seen a Facebook meme in which Steve Jobs's success in business is attributed to his remembering often that he would die and have also read in a book about depression that the Dalai Lama is so kind because he has meditated on death every day since he was eight. My experience is that is perfectly possible to think often and poignantly about death and dying--I do and have for decades now--to much less remarkable effect.

Spring break, near west side style

At the beach

Laying an egg

Sick in bed

You have been warned

"Mommy! It turns out that James doesn't like ballet," says Henry, as we are heading into the back yard to feed the dogs.

I am sure I have misunderstood. "He doesn't like what?"

"Really?" I consider whether Peter might have interrupted a You Tube viewing session devoted to best-of monster truck rally montages and firefighters leaping out of trucks to rescue kittens from the flames to show the boys a clip from Giselle. "Really?"

"Yes. And he said that if a ballet-er comes to our yard, he will fight her."

Being themselves

It was warm enough in the sun to go sockless, but the sidewalks were unbelievably slick this morning on the way to the school, and it was mostly black ice, the trickster. Our first venture out only saw us across the street, scrabbling not to lose ground on the 3 degree grade of the curb cut, before I decided to come back home for my brilliant Ice Trekkers. I was then able to hold the boys' hands, stalwart as an oak, while they boot-skated, as James likes to say.

James's feet slipped out from under him. "That's OK," he said. "'I love to slip!' said the guard." Probably a quarter of James's conversation these days is delivered in this form, as dialogue attributed to one of his alter egos, most often a dog or a guard or a worker.

Henry slipped. "STOOpid ice!"

"Aw, the ice isn't stupid," I said."The ice is just being ice. It's enacting its icy nature."

Henry liked this idea. "Maybe the ice is protecting itself from its enemies."

I felt so happy. Maybe it was just the birds chirping, and the sun, and the fact that I was asleep last night before 9, but I enjoyed so thoroughly this perfectly--perfectly--characteristic exchange. I try not to make too much of the differences between Henry and James; I don't want either one to feel that he is the "X" one, while his brother is "Y". I don't want the way I see them to be fixed in my own mind, either. But I am certainly struck by this difference in the workings of their imaginations: James is forever trying on different characters--this morning, when he put on a pair of drab green pants (with puppies on them, but whatever), he threw his fist up in front of his face and grimaced fiercely, saying "I an army guy!"--while Henry is never anyone but Henry, making connections, drawing conclusions, speculating constantly on the mysteries of the world outside himself.

Equally typical were their reactions to slipping. James, making a virtue of necessity, is an inveterate spotter of silver linings. Henry, on the other hand, is a big one for cursing the darkness. I worry: Will James stick up for himself when he needs to? Will he be too devoted to peace to engage in necessary fights? Will Henry be able to forgive his own and others' mistakes? Will I ever be able to just hear his rage without reacting to it, making it worse? But sometimes, like this morning, it doesn't seem necessary to worry. It's just pure pleasure, watching them unfold.

Date night

Henry, after dinner, as we are nibbling dates: "Hey, I know, Mommy! On the weekend, James and I can go over to grandma's so you and Daddy can spend some time with each and you can play Chutes and Ladders..." (rising in a great crescendo of excitement) "...together!"

snow day morning

We are frozen in again today by the polar vortex. Outside is wondrously beautiful--intensest cerulean sky, glittery snow, still fresh on its second day because yesterday was too cold for traffic--but it is 5 below, and it hurts to breathe out there, so we are starting to feel a little confined. As I often do, I am wondering how Caroline Ingalls did it.

However, cabin fever, like any other, spikes and ebbs, and we've just had a good spell. I came into the living room to find Henry explaining the universe to James, who was enthralled.

"This is our planet," Henry said. "We are flying in outer space."

James: "Oh, wow, wow, wow! A castle!"Henry: "And knights!"

A few scenes from the turn of the year

1. James opened his present from Auntie (a puzzle) on Christmas morning and exclaimed with vigor, "Holy smokes!" I had never heard the expression out of his mouth before, nor am I aware of anyone using it around him, but it came to his lips with perfect aptness, to everyone's delight.

2. I had this brief conversation today with Henry: He had been sulky, contumacious, and out of sorts, refusing to get dressed, exclaiming if I tried to speak to him that I was hurting him, and rolling around on the bed and handling objects in a fashion that was clearly intended to suggest mischief, whether or not mischief was actually being made. I was ready to leave the house: a snowstorm and sub-zero high temperatures are rolling in over the weekend and I wanted all the time outside we could manage today. "I'm getting really angry," I said, and I felt one of those strange little jolts of injustice that plague me so unreasonably when the children and I are having a hard time. "You need to get.... if you don't get ... " I spluttered, with a threat to throw all the Lara bars in the house away, since they had been our last but one bone of contention, on the tip of my tongue. I stopped myself and went out of the room, closing the door behind me. "I need a sec," I said. "I need a minute to calm down." Twenty minutes later, Henry had dressed himself, tidied up some toys unprompted, and was putting on his socks and boots. "Sweetheart," I said to him. "You were having a bad time earlier, feeling pretty grumpy and bad." He agreed, but looked a little wary, as if he feared a big lecture. "I'm just wondering, " I said, "what I could do to be helpful when you feel like that. Should I hug you and hold you? Leave you alone?" "Leave me alone," he said immediately. "I just have to get that feeling out of me." 

3. We spent New Year's Eve with friends, and I opened the first of my 17 bottles of Dad's wine. It was a lovely time--and Peter came too, which was a rare treat. While I was getting dressed beforehand, in a hurry, James came into the bathroom to watch me multi-task by pulling on stockings while I sat on the toilet. Like his brother, he is pleased when I dress up. He was obviously impressed by the slightly shimmery black nylon fabric pooled at my ankles, and cast about for how best to express his feelings. "Mommy," he said. "You look pretty when you go pee-pee."

Apres le deluge

December rain

Here's good medicine for waking up on the wrong side of bed (because every side of the bed is wrong at 4:30 a.m.).

Henry (opening the back door and looking out onto this bleak, bleak December morning): "If you listen carefully, you can hear the music the rain makes!"

The last gasp of November

Yesterday:

Two boys in a boat

Today:

What are you doing, James?
"Us working!"

Thanks giving

I admit that the idea of a self-conscious "gratitude practice," much touted as the secret to happiness, has rubbed me the wrong way since I heard of it. I won't go into why, but you know what? I'll get over it.

Without further ado or apology, here is the working list of what Henry, James, and I are thankful for this week (I leave it to the reader to sort out the authors of specific entries):

1. Babies.
2. Food: Fruit! Turkeys! Chicken with pizza sprinkles!
3. Henry and James and Peter and all the other parts of the family. (Henry would like to note especially that this includes Grandmama. Auntie too.)
4. Knitting! Knowing how and being able to afford the yarn.
5. Flowers! In the yard and right here on the kitchen table.
6. Good books, and the ability to read and understand them.
7. Good shoes, and feet that don't hurt any more.
8. Dreams and mysteries.
9. Good places to go, like Griffy Lake, Lake Monroe, Wonderlab, and Banneker.
10. Places we haven't been to yet but can hope to go someday, like the Ocean, Afghanistan, Gary, Kotahoka (it's in the south and has a lot of oceans in it), Chicago, and the North Pole.
11. Friends: old ones, new ones, nutty ones, nice ones.
12. Friends: Isaak, Willa, Ida, Graedan, Josh, Oliver (except when he's being too rough).
13. A warm and safe house to live in. Not only that, but a second house that will also one day be warm and safe. Relatedly: big windows, tall ceilings, southern exposures, and pawpaw trees. And paint chips to dream over.