November, 2013: It's My Party (and I'll Cry If I Want To)

My mother had nothing to wear.  It was her last social engagement, and she was the guest of honor.

In the years that she was ill, she stopped paying attention to things like her wardrobe.  She did little socializing during those years, and comfort had become her most important factor in selecting clothes.  She had become progressively smaller, and even though her closets were overburdened with clothes, she truly had nothing to wear.  There would be no "trying on everything in the closet."  We did begin there, even though it felt intrusive to be standing in her cold, abandoned closet fidgeting the hangers back and forth over the rod.  We would need to buy her a new outfit for her funeral.

While my father went out to buy a new suit, my sister and I set out for the mall, armed with his debit card.  Realistically, we needed to buy everything my mother would wear that day.  It occurred to us on the way there, that we had no idea what size to look for.  There is no handbook on how to dress your mother for her funeral.  We did the only thing we could think of; we stopped at the funeral home and asked.  We explained, probably unnecessarily, that our mother had wasted away, and we had no idea what size she wore.  The very understanding undertaker said "I'll go check for you," as if this were a question she was asked every day, and surely this is part of the training in undergraduate funereal management programs.  "Size 14," she told us upon her return.  We were astounded; how was it possible that our tiny mother needed a size 14 dress?  Back in the car, the logic of it occurred to us, individually, and we acknowledged that this was not a situation in which "too big" would be a hindrance.

There were so many issues to consider.  Pants?  Dress?  Skirt?  What would she have chosen for herself?  Colors?  What would she have liked?  Black was out of the question, but it couldn't be a festive color.  Money was no object, but realistically, it was.  We wanted to respect the gravity of our mission, but this outfit, much like the wedding dress she had worn 50 years earlier, would not be worn again.  She had to look nice, but she couldn't be overdressed or underdressed.  The myriad considerations were overwhelming.  We decided on a pantsuit.  It was purple, just the right shade of purple to be serious and age-appropriate, to be respectful.  It was the sort of thing you might want to wear to your interview for the afterlife.  We found a patterned blouse that was neither floral nor jaunty; neither trendy nor old-fashioned.  We were stupid-giddy-broken-heartedly exhausted as we entered the lingerie department to finish the final items on our list, and God help the poor young woman who inquired innocently "Can I help you?"  A moment of silence passed, and we erupted into perfectly inappropriate guffaws of laughter.  The number of ways in which the salesclerk could not help us was unfathomable.  We each thought of explaining our mission but decided against it; politely, we declined her help, periodically giggling as we finished our shopping spree, weeping over what we had lost and laughing at the absurdity of what we were selecting.  As the saying goes, I guess you had to be there.
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Afterward, my friend Laurie and my mentor Diana told me my mother had been beautiful.  It seemed strange to me at the time.  They didn't know her, and as I had watched her fade away for two years, beauty had been the last thing on my mind.  But our brains don't actually see color; instead, they see the reflections of the light waves that are not absorbed by the objects in our gaze.  I believe on that day, as I looked at my mother for the last time, what I saw was the reflection of my own heartache.  It was empty.  Exhausted.  Broken.

As the last 4 years have passed, time and struggle have brushed against the rough edges of my experience, smoothing them out and buffing the colors into soft and cloudy memories.

When I call up my mother's image now, what I remember is not fear, loss, or heartache.  What I see reflected now is love.

Beautiful.

November, 2013: Not With a Bang but a Whimper

"Honey, Mom's gone."

Later, my sister and I would confess that our first thought when the nurse had woken us up from our unexpectedly deep sleep in the TV lounge in the hospice ward was "Where the hell could she go?"  My mother had been a stubborn woman, which we would all agree is an understatement, but she had been unresponsive since we agreed that a morphine drip would be the best way to keep her comfortable.  Still, it would not have surprised us if she had stood up and walked away.  She had, that summer, gotten into the driver's seat of my parents' car because she wanted to go home --even though her license had expired, and she hadn't driven in almost two years.  My second thought was actually that they had physically lost my mother in the hospital.  But no; the nurse had walked by the room and peeked in on her, and she had simply stopped breathing.  She quietly slipped away.

The moment I had been the most afraid of was the split second that she passed from Before into After, and we had all slept through it.  We had been reassured by many lovely, well meaning people in the hospice ward, that many people choose to let go that way, to wait until no one was watching to make the giant leap.  11/11/13.  1:11 a.m.  Maybe it was 1:10 or 1:20, and my brain craftily turned it into 1:11.  Poetic license.  We noted that it was Veterans' Day, and we would never forget.

We held my father's hand and watched while the nurse listened for as long as she needed to for my mother's absent heartbeat.  The nurse told us to stay as long as we wanted to.  We stayed as long as my mother would have wanted us to, which was long enough to say goodbye and respect the moment but no longer.

It was strange to pack up our various bags of things:  our knitting; the bag of socks my father had brought with us; the rest of the Halloween candy; my mother's clothes; my father's comforts from home; tea bags; laptops; e-readers.  We walked off the ward.  I thought fleetingly of all the things that happen in the dark of night in the hospital, in the hospice ward, so that families like ours could leave in dignity and peace.

Someone drove my father home.  I vaguely remember driving his car at some point.  Jamie went home to be with our son the next morning because his parents, who had been babysitting all week, had to get back.  I slept for a very long time in my hotel room until my sister called, and I was reminded of all that we had ahead of us.

A lot of work goes into letting go.

November, 2013: Prayer Shawls

While I sat in the hospital in November, 2011, watching plasma and
saline and toxic chemicals drip into my mother, I needed something to keep my fingers busy.  I needed the quiet rhythm of wooden needles marking time against each other while I learned to sit quietly, in the moment, with my family.  I wanted to make her something comforting; although hats were an obvious choice, I was cold in the hospital, and I thought about how it would feel in a hospital gown, in a cold, sterile bed that overlooked the construction of the new hospital wing.  I picked the softest yarn I could find in my stash and held it up to my cheek; I imagined it wrapped around her shoulders.  I picked a pattern that would require little thought and cast on a simple shawl.  It began with just three stitches and grew reassuringly by two stitches at the beginning and end of each row so that it didn't only grow longer but also wider as I worried it, stitch by stitch, into being.  Afterward, I found it in a box of things that had come home with her from the hospital that December.  I don't think she ever wore it, but I wear it now, and it brings me great comfort.  

Two years later, the air was cold and dry as I curled in the chair in the hallway, wrapped in my father's worn sweatshirt.  However I tried, I could not warm myself.  My knitting needles clicked as I knit row after row of soft blue alpaca, stopping periodically to hold it against my cheek and test how well it would comfort me afterward.  Weeks before I had chosen the blues and grays because they resembled the ocean, where she had wanted to go for her birthday in November, 2011, the birthday she spent in the cold hospital room.  When I packed hastily for my trip to the hospital, I needed something to knit, but I couldn't take any of the projects I had already cast on.  They were to be Christmas gifts, and I couldn't knit all that sadness into gifts for other people.  Instead, hour after hour I knit my mother's comfort into a shawl I could wrap around myself in the months to come when the cold and the loss and emptiness would be impenetrable.  Although it makes my heart clench when I hold it against my cheek, that basic shawl, slightly too large because I was reluctant to let it end, helps me to remember that my mother would want me to live my life.  She would want me to start my life over if I wanted to, to go to the beach, to take a nap, or read a good book.  And so I have done these things; I take more risks, I step out of my comfort zone, I tell my son how much I love him.  I wrap that shawl around me and revel in its comfort; I know she is with me.

Prayer shawls have long been part of many religious affiliations.  The Tallit in Judaism, the Mantilla in the Roman Catholic tradition, and Pentecostal prayer cloths are just a few examples of special clothing people have worn during prayer.  Among fiber artists, the prayer shawl embodies the creator's thoughts and prayers for the receiver.  Prayer ministries have formed for the sole purpose of knitting and crocheting prayers into comforting shawls for those in need physical or spiritual comfort. Shawls are begun, crafted, and given in prayer.  In prayer ministries, the shawl may be passed around a prayer circle so that each person can add their own prayers, or stitches, to each shawl.  


Although I didn't realize it at the time, and it certainly wouldn't be traditional to knit one's own, I see now that these shawls, knit at the beginning and end of my mother's illness, were prayer shawls.  With each stitch, I connected with my family, shared thoughts of my mother, imagined how we would rearrange the stitches of our life without her  I wear them now for comfort; always cold, I have been even colder as I have reknit the void left behind by her passing.  I receive a lot of compliments on these simple shawls; for now, I tell the sad story of how they came to be, but I hope that in the near future I will share stories about how my mother taught me to knit, about her aunt Rose who always made the most beautiful baby clothes, about the times that my mother and I shopped for yarn, or about her faith in my ability to knit socks.  I think of my son, teaching himself to knit by watching YouTube, trying out double pointed needles, and becoming entranced by weaving.  We are tied together, stitch by stitch, row by row, threads spun and plied from the past to the present, our future an infinity of combinations of colors and textures made from two simple stitches.  Knit. Purl.  

November, 2013: Into the Light

I've come to believe that in the same way that I have "work friends" and "knitting friends" and "college friends" I also have "loss friends."  They aren't necessarily people I hang out and drink coffee with, but we have connected at some core level through our experiences with loss.  Most of us could use the hashtag #cancersucks to describe moments in our lives.  My sister has a friend (a real friend) who I count among my "loss friends;" after losing one of her sons tragically to cancer (#cancersucks), she has dedicated her life to helping families who are undergoing traumatic experiences with childhood cancers.  Because her son's favorite color was orange, Laurel believes that Myles speaks to her through beautiful orange sunsets.

It's probably a coincidence, but from the time my mother was hospitalized in November, 2011 for intensive chemotherapy, I have been witness to spectacular sunsets.  Many nights while I was making the drive from Albany Medical Center to Amenia, New York, I had to pull over and watch because I was spellbound by the exquisite beauty in the skies.  During that week in November, 2013, the sunrises and sunsets were breathtaking.  From the wide expanse of windows in the hospice ward, each day greeted us with a glorious watercolor of crimsons, fuschias, salmons, corals, burgundies, vermilions, magentas, garnets, apricots, tangerines, peaches, cadmiums, amethysts, pomegranates, periwinkles, lilacs, lavenders, orchids, plums, and violets...as if it were necessary for us to drink up every color in the universe in that one moment.  Nights drifted in reluctantly as the colors blazed and slowly muted into darkness; temporarily sated, we reluctantly let go of the day.  Like Scheherazade, they forced us to stop and just BE in the moment while they danced around us with their stories and promise of just one more day.

In the days After, I have remained particularly sensitive to the comings and goings of each day's show of colors.  We have moved to a new state, where we live at the top of a hill; during many of my drives to and from work or just watching from the many windows of our house in the country, my breath catches as I reflect upon the swirling pools of watercolors.  I like to think that my mother is there with her own parents and sister, who she lost far too young, and with Myles, reminding us to stop to take notice of the world's magnificence.

sunset in our back yard                                                     sunset at Duncan's school

November, 2013: Interstices

The next day, of so many days that would later blend into one, we were all still there.  The day passed in a state of semi-normalcy as we went about the business of waiting.  We took turns bringing back food, water, coffee, and tea.  We updated friends.  We cancelled work, and conference travel, and checked in with babysitters.  We updated our children's teachers about the first substantial loss they were about to endure.  We assured my father that he could go home to take a shower, and maybe even a nap.  We assured my mother that although we loved her, and we knew she loved us, we would be okay.  She could go, you know...if she was ready.

Our young friends were a little more occupied.  Their people had come...I remember them as arriving like the family in Patricia Rylant's children's book The Relatives Came, although far less festive.  Families would arrive en masse in that place, with picnics and drinks and spiritual advisors; they chatted and caught up and had mini reunions and talked about how they really should get together more often, and not just for these sad occasions.  Then everything would become quiet, as if they realized suddenly that they would not all be going home.

When night fought her way back in again, and we went around the corner for pizza, we bought extra to feed our three young friends, just in case.  That night their grandmother came out and took them out for dinner.  It was difficult loosening the grip on the comforting idea that my life was preordained, but I felt better knowing that they were not alone.  Someone would need that pizza after all.  There are times, when you are waiting, when you can summon up just enough energy to take care of the living, but there are times when you just can't.  There was a great spirit of sharing in the hospice ward, the wing devoted to waiting for After.  My nephew came that night, and although he could not bring himself to see my mother, his good-byes already having been said in his own way, it was calming to be wrapped in the comfort of the everyday that he brought with him...homework, play dates, school projects.  He was a reminder that Out There, life went on.

My mother, in her stubbornness, hung on.  We were all exhausted.  It was the diametric opposite of sleepless nights spent in labor and delivery waiting for new life to enter the world.  There were sleep deprived moments of dark humor.  There was one long, dark act of the play unfolding where we begged her to stay.  "Look," we implored, "We know we told you it was okay to go, but we also JUST told Dad it would be okay for him to go home to take a shower.  PLEASE wait until he gets back.  PLEASE.  He will never forgive himself if you go now, and he isn't here.  Then you can do whatever you want.  Just hang in a little longer."  I thought of the oldest brother of our young friends (or maybe it was even an uncle) who had made it in time and said a little prayer for all of them too.

With that day almost over, and the waiting continuing, the nurses brought us sheets and blankets, warm from the dryer.  We settled onto two adjacent couches in the waiting room and napped under a sign that decreed "No sleeping in the television room."  Clearly, we were not the first people to squat illegally since we had been so well cared for.  Just as I drifted off, my sister poked me and motioned to the couches behind us, where the girl and her two brothers had stolen into our world of darkened waiting, like stray cats, seeking whatever small comfort they could find.  My sister and I nodded silently at each other, acknowledging that sometimes the most you can do for someone is be there with them, in the moment.  Waiting.  Together.

Enter the New

Some time ago, when I began this blog, I was obsessed with knitting blogs.  I fantasized that I would become the sort of talented knitter (like The Yarn Harlot) who would achieve a degree of fame and (much less degree of) fortune through writing.  Nevertheless, I wanted to write, and I called my blog Knits and Nuts.  I liked to knit and was a tad...um...unique.  Quirky.  Maybe even nuts.  In subsequent years, when I found myself writing about any number of things, ranging from greener living, gardening, and travel, to parenting, teaching, dyslexia, ADHD, and reading, my sister-in-law pointed out to me that although she enjoyed my blog, I didn't write that much about knitting.  Or nuts.

It was a valid point.  And then it was a moot point because my life upheaved, and I didn't really write much about anything for at least 4 years during which Things Happened.

So this year, when I took on the 30 Day Writing Challenge (which I didn't finish, by the way), I realized how much I missed writing.  I decided that I needed a fresh start, and I might as well fix that whole Knits and Nuts business altogether.  In my non writing time, I spent a lot of time examining just what the common thread was; what were the common themes that compelled me to commit them to writing?  I realized that they all had to do with my stepping out of the safety and security of my comfort zone and trying new things, some more radical than others.  And so, about a year after turning 50, I took stock in how much newness I had brought into my life and how it had changed me.  I may be older, but I'm learning to try new things, and that changing perspective has had profound effects on my outlook, my little family, and our life together.  I hope you will join me as I continue to write about any number of things, ranging from greener living, gardening, and travel, to parenting, teaching, learning differences, dyslexia, ADHD, and reading.  And knitting.  And maybe even nuts.  Welcome to Older Dog; Newer Tricks.  Stick with me to learn more about where I've been and where I'm going.

30 Day Writing Challenge: Day Three

My first love and my first kiss?

There were moments when I thought they were the same.  At the time of the kiss, I didn't even try to convince myself that I loved him.  I barely knew him.  I was the embarrassingly old age of 16, and he was a worldly 18.  I was star struck, and the things he liked about me were things that I didn't know yet how to like about myself.  The kiss lured me in like a siren's song, but I never really loved him.  I tried to love him; I tried more times than was fair, and in the end, when I tried to make him hate me so that I could walk away, I had to do the breaking.  The kiss was not that great in retrospect, but it was at night, in a car, with a boy who was older than me, and I was overwhelmed by the discovery that the world was so much bigger than I expected.

My first love took me by surprise.  I didn't want to love him.  I was too complicated.  There were other men I wanted to love me, but none of that was worth the effort.  I didn't know how to be that woman who would go out and make that happen.  But this one cleaned my car off in a blizzard.  He made me art work.  He shared music that made my heart want explode out of my body.  I could NOT.  I would NOT.  Love him.  I was the embarrassingly old age of 31, and he was...um...younger than that.  And I was too complicated.  I was just too.  I did my best to scare him so that he could walk away.  I would NOT love him.  And then I did.  The things he loved about me were things that I didn't know yet how to love about myself, and that faith lured me in like a siren's song.  Then he walked away because we both wanted different things.  But we didn't.  And then we did.  By that point, we knew of no other way to be than together.  We liked each other too much not to be friends, and as friends, we had to do the right thing by each other.  So we did.  And now he cleans my car off in the snow, puts air in my tires, and packs lunch for our son.  The things he loves about me are things I'm still learning to love about myself, but each day I am overwhelmed by the discovery that my heart is so much bigger than I ever expected.

30 Day Writing Challenge: Day 2

"I called your mother.  She'll be here in 15 minutes."

I must have been six; I was in Kindergarten, the land of required naps, and it was nearing Easter.  I had thrown up at school, which would later become my litmus test for whether or not to miss work.  (No vomiting?  No fever?  Get over yourself.) She arrived in a yellow Checker taxi cab; my father had our single car at work.  It was early spring and drizzly though I remember a light coating of snow.  We arrived home at our house in either Texas or Illinois...and ate soup and grilled cheese in a kitchen that is one of the two rooms I remember from that house.  I watched the afternoon sunlight pour into my bedroom, where I lay unsleeping.  My most vivid memory is the realization that I would miss that day's art project, the decoupaging of tissue paper onto an egg shaped piece of construction paper for Easter.  I was heart broken and realized I would have done anything to be back in school.  My mother reassured me that we could do the project at home. But we never did.  I returned to school the next day.

Despite my disappointment about the art project I never completed, my memories of that first sick day are of warmth and security.  I still spend so much time trying to be all the things that everyone expects of me that it is impossible for me to choose self-care.  It is a struggle I have always faced, whether it dates back to early ADHD or anxiety or simply personality.  Yet, there is a complete calm that falls over me when I am finally forced to succumb to the illness and allow myself to be cared for.  On that day, curled up in bed in the middle of the day, watching the dust motes float in the sunlight, I knew that my mother would come to me; she would be there for me to ensure that I had everything I needed, even if she had to take a cab to get to me.

Ironically, Jamie's parents took care of Duncan last week while we were away at a conference.  Just hours after we had left the house, they were called to pick up Duncan from school because he complained of a stomach ache.  He didn't seem particularly sick when they brought him home, but they sent him to bed to rest after a lunch of soup and grilled cheese.  He was sad to have missed building a candy trebuchet in his engineering class that afternoon, and I reassured him that we can make one at home.  Jamie and I agreed with his parents that the far more important issue was Duncan testing whether or not the system would work.  He needed to know that the "Grandma and Grandpa unit" would pull through in case of an emergency, and as he proudly told us afterward, it did.  The school reached the right people through the right channels; Grandpa navigated the sick pickup process all the way to the nurse's office, and Duncan had the security he needed to get through the rest of the week without us.  

When I truly need it, I will crawl under the heavy blankets, in the middle of the day, and watch the dust motes dance in streams of sunlight, like fairies, and remind myself that if I let go, my loved one's will catch me.  Whatever I am forced to give up (these days it looks more like independence decoupaged onto control and self-reliance) is worth knowing how it feels to be completely cared for; they will come for me.

Love Is Cage Free Eggs

Usually, my husband and I do our grocery shopping together.  It may sound like a waste of time, but it works for us.  He keeps me honest and somewhat frugal, and I remember to buy things I've forgotten to add to the grocery list, like sweet potatoes and juice boxes.  On Sunday, Jamie went shopping alone; we had returned from a weekend away, and Duncan was exhausted, strung out, and asked to stay home.  Sometimes, it's eye opening to see what he brings home when I am not around to influence his purchases. This week's revealing item was cage free eggs; those cage free eggs spelled love.

If you're landing here for the first time, you need to know that I have spent the last several years slowly, steadily, determinedly encouraging my family to reduce their impact on the environment.  We joined a CSA, stopped using paper towels and napkins, and committed to packing waste-free lunches.  I stealthily joined the Meatless Monday movement and stretched my flexitarian lifestyle to include meatless Tuesday. I made it a practice to bake my own bread for our weekly grilled cheese night and started making soup instead of buying it in cans.  We took a hard look at our recycling practices and endeavored to be the best recyclers we could be; we started composting.  We've made a lot of changes, and we know now that we have a lot to go, but we work at it every day.

Working on our food choices has been a long adventure.  Ultimately, I'm trying to feed my family more local food, less processed food, and less but more humane meat.  It is not a perfect world, but we try.  I have been buying most of our meat from the farmers' market or from a local, organic farm; when I can, I buy eggs from the farmers' market or I buy the most local options available in the grocery store.  This weekend, Jamie returned with two dozen cage free eggs.  I know they cost more; I'm sure he doesn't understand why I care about the chickens, and I'm not going to launch into a diatribe about the lives of the typical, "factory" laying chicen.  But the truth is, I DO care about the chickens.  Jamie could have bought any eggs.  We had a rough week; I wasn't going to complain about his egg choices.  He may have to live with my choices, particularly in what we bring home from the grocery store, but I don't believe it's my business to criticize his.  Nevertheless, there they are.  Cage free eggs.  He had heard my concern for the lives of the chickens, the healthfulness of the eggs, and the carbon footprint of our food.

To you, they may just be eggs.  Cage free eggs in biodegradable cartons.  To me, they're love.

Back in Time

It turned out that Old Sturbridge Village was a perfect place to spend the 4th of July. It felt right to be connected to the period when the Revolution occurred, and OSV provided many activities centered around the Revolution. Artillery demonstrations, a town parade (including a calf), an opportunity to purchase Independence Day Cake (it was not what you would think), and a reading of the Declaration of Independence supplemented the everyday exhibits provided at the museum.

We tried to hit some exhibits we didn't get to see on our last visit as well as some favorites. Much like our last visit, Duncan really enjoyed watching people make things. We had a nice talk with the tinsmith, who gave Duncan a biscuit cutter and assured me that the Revolution would not lead to a tin shortage because he would get it illegally from Canada, where it was cheaper anyway. The potter showed off his skills again (and I'm sure the picture I took of him this year is identical to the one I took two years ago). Duncan was mesmerized by the blacksmith. I suppose it was the fire; aren't we all drawn to it in some kind of primordial way? We thought with the dangers of blacksmithing that children wouldn't be involved, but we discovered that the blacksmith had an 11 year old apprentice, who was part of the OSV's summer program.

We took a horse drawn carriage ride (well, it wasn't a carriage, but I don't remember what it was called ; forgive me) and a boat ride across the pond and looked at the variety of ways the Colonists harnessed the river for transportation, carding wool, and sawing wood. It was difficult to drag Duncan away from the water pump; other than the boat ride, it probably had the longest line of anything at OSV as the children took turns splashing in the water and drinking it, to cries of parents who insisted "DON'T DRINK THAT!"

Of course, you can never predict what will and won't appeal to children. One of Duncan's favorite parts of the trip was our stay in the hotel. The novelty of the hotel, the pool, and the free continental breakfast (complete with waffles) enticed him like a trip to a 4 star resort. "Look, this hotel even has a safe!" I think he was sadder to leave the hotel than to leave the Village, but we all had a great time, and Jamie and I were reassured enough that we could survive a night in a hotel with Duncan that we feel brave enough to try it again!  Maybe with a historic trip to Mystic!

Going on Five; Going on Fifteen

Sometimes, I would swear Duncan is going on fifteen. When I get home from work, or when I pick him up from school, inevitably I ask "How was your day?" to which he responds "Good." I follow with "What did you do?" There are two possible responses:  1)  "I don't remember."; 2)  "I don't want to talk about it."

Part of me wants to be offended. These are social niceties:  have a good day; how was your day; what did you do today.  The thing people are supposed to do is...well...answer. It's not just that I'm his mother, and I care about what he did all day when he wasn't with me; it's also that in polite society, you come up with something to say back. Luckily, the wise woman in me, the one who peeks her head out once in a while and says "you might want to rethink that" has helped me to be quiet and patient. Many times, if I just keep quiet with my ears open, I will hear my answer. As he unwinds and develops some distance from school, he remembers things he wants to tell me. It's not so much that he doesn't want to talk about it; I think it's more that he hasn't really had a chance to think about it yet. He went to school; he lived it; he hasn't really processed it yet, and suddenly there's this overly involved woman who wants all the details. If she'll just shut up, she will eventually get the story.

If the wise woman in me doesn't get the answers, the teacher in me (whoa is the teacher in me strong!) can usually get to the heart of the matter, for she has learned that sometimes you have to ask the question in a different way. "What was your favorite thing you did today?" "What was your least favorite thing you did today?" "What did you have for snack?" "Did you build anything today?" Usually, changing the question, narrowing it, and making it a little more manageable opens up a great discussion of the day's events.

The fun part of these social conventions is that Duncan has begun to ask us what we did at work. There is little that is cuter in the almost-five set than "So, what did you do at work today, Mama?" Interestingly, the answer is usually "I taught some kids. I answered some e-mails. I went to a meeting." As I write it down, it sounds a lot like a 46 year old version of "I don't remember; I don't want to talk about it." It's almost the 16 year old "You wouldn't understand." 

Maybe if I tell a better story, I will get better questions. 46 going on 16. The teacher in me is strong. Stop talking and listen.

Glimpses

One of the things I find tricky about parenting is that you never know how things will turn out. Some days I feel like a good parent; on other days, I don't bring my best game. I have to hope that the good days will outweigh the bad days in the end. I hope that all the lessons I want to teach my son will take root and that he will end up a happy, productive, and healthy person. In the meantime, regardless of whatever happened today, I still have to get up and do it again tomorrow. Sometimes that means brushing off the fact that I returned home from work impatient and rolled my eyes when I had to play Grand Central Station with GeoTrax. Sometimes it means leaving behind my frustration with begging and whining and hoping that my child will be replaced with a pleasant and compliant pod person. Sometimes it means collecting those moments where I made my child giggle or when he thanks me for a gesture so small that it breaks my heart a little. "This is really good bread Mama. Thank you for making it." Sometimes it means appreciating that a four year old is proud that he knows how to make grilled cheese sandwiches and pizza and help bake muffins.

Tonight was one of those moments. We were working on cajoling Duncan to finish his dinner. I bit my tongue as he pulled the carrots out of his salad and stacked them in a pile on his place mat. A million voices screamed inside my head:  "Don't play with your food!" Then he put all the carrots in his mouth at once. A million voices in my head lectured:  "You'll choke." (Only one adult actually said the words aloud, and it was not me)  I was biting back "Don't play with your food!" again when Duncan pulled all the vegetables he didn't like out of his salad bowl and piled them on his plate. And in the silence where I was actively working on NOT nagging my child, he said "I'm going to put these guys over here. This can be the compost pile."

And I will save that one in my mental scrapbook to remind me that this child is really learning all the lessons I'm trying to teach him about the environment. He is learning that we don't use paper napkins so that we can save trees. He is learning that we don't buy individually packaged snacks so that we can use less plastic. He is genuinely learning that vegetables and eggs come from a farm and that farmer Dan works hard so we can have lettuce. The compost pile has become part of his everyday life. I see a glimpse that this child of mine will grow into a good steward of the earth, and it makes me hopeful; not just hopeful that he will turn out okay, but hopeful that he and his peers will make a difference on this planet. They will grow up learning how to put it right.

Talk about a leap of faith.

A Healthy Sense of Wonder

Our new friend Ben was born today.  I haven't met him yet; I haven't even seen him yet for that matter, but I hear that he is pretty special.  His arrival has left me nostalgic for our early days with my own son, Duncan, who will turn 2 in 6 days.  How these little people arrive in the world is nothing short of magic, no matter how they get here.  Sometimes, I can't imagine how Jamie, Duncan, or I survived to see him turn 2 given our lack of experience with the whole baby rearing game.  Sometimes, each day feels so long that you can't foresee waking up to do it all over again; then, suddenly, 724 of those days are gone.  Childhood is fleeting.  My eyes have welled with tears all day as I have been completely overwhelmed with love for my beautiful, 2-going-on-20, little boy.  I hope that I can always recapture this feeling.  Especially after he drives my car through the garage door.