It's late, and I just tucked my exhausted children into bed, but I wanted to document this moment, however inadequate my late-night musings may be.
We celebrated my girl's tenth birthday today. Ten! She is ten! How is it possible? How has a decade, which seems like such a weighty, significant length of time, actually passed since her birth on that gray Sunday morning? Then again: she is so deeply anchored in this world, and in our hearts, that trying to remember our lives before her seems like a strange trick of memory.
Dear World: I want you to know some things about my girl. I want you to know how much I love this child. I want the world to love her like I do. Loving someone as much as I love my babies just makes me feel kind of desperate and crazy most of the time. Sometimes I feel like the best I can do is hope and pray that this crazy love will make up for all the ways in which I cannot possibly live up to the task of raising them well enough.
My daughter loves to laugh. She is also obnoxiously funny in that fourth grade way that irritates me now but that I will absolutely miss one day. (Things that are "funny" in our house include terrible puns, terrible knock-knock jokes, and anything including bodily functions. Oh, you thought that was limited to boys? It doesn't help that she has a little brother whose favorite word lately is "booger," but I am here to tell you it's not limited to boys.)
She is friendly. Nothing delights her more than seeing someone she knows. If she recognizes someone from school at the grocery store she insists on running over to say hello. Sometimes on our way home she'll cry, "Mom, I see my friend!" and it will be literally some kid her in class she saw not ten minutes earlier, but she is still so happy to call a cheerful good-bye after that person.
She is kind. One of the best compliments I received was from a staff member at her school who watched her standing up to an older kid who was picking on a younger kid.
She is incredibly stoic at the dentist. I don't know why I find this relevant; maybe as her mama I'm just so proud every time they say, "She's seriously one of our best patients." They probably say that to everyone who doesn't cry, I don't know, but last year Suzannah had to have a filling and it wasn't fun, and the dentist said that while she held it together really well in the chair I might just be prepared for her to be a little shaken or emotional afterwards. And I was like, hey, I majored in being shaken and emotional! I've got this. But Zannah walked to the car, spit casually onto the asphalt before climbing in, and asked if she could really have ice cream for dinner and also could we please hurry home so she could do her homework.
At the same time, she is sensitive to people's feelings. She is sensitive to perceived injustice. She in sensitive to what she perceives as imperfections: she will lose her mind if she thinks she will be late for school, or if she forgets a math assignment in her desk, both of which have happened exactly once this year. The tardiness was out of her control (ahem, Matt) but the math assignment was a simple mistake. Both, I thought, provided opportunities to learn how to deal with life and the pressure to be perfect, and I resisted the powerful urge to try to fix it for her. It was hard on both of us. But it's not the last hard moment we will have: I know this, too.
She loves school, loves learning. She reads greedily. She thinks math is fun and she's proud of being good at it. She tells us that her class is full of weirdos, and she says it proudly. She's not "cool" and she she seems to be unabashedly okay with this, and this is something about her that I love so much; I will do anything to protect that in her. She doesn't engage in drama at school; if it exists, she doesn't appear to notice. Her best friends are the boys in our neighborhood, but lately her "best friend" is a girl at school who she has been "hanging out with a lot lately, like the last two weeks!" (She's actually a lovely girl who's been in her class for years, but lately they've bonded over, I don't even know, math and Harry Potter.) She deeply loves everyone who has ever been her teacher. I can't blame her. I love everyone who has ever been her teacher.
She is bookish and bossy, which she maybe gets from her parents (although I am admittedly the bossier person in our marriage, though Matt is probably equally as opinionated). She also loves sports, and I have no earthly idea where she gets that. Matt and I love to be active, and Matt is all about tossing a frisbee or playing tennis or engaging the kids in hard outdoor play, but neither one of us give the remotest of shits about, say, football, and our child can watch an entire game and be actively engaged the entire time and I have a pretty good feeling she understands it far better than we do. She plays soccer every day at recess and can't wait to tell me about the day's game when I pick her up at the end of the day.
She wants to play the drums. Gulp.
She loves people. If you become one of "her" people, know that it matters. Know that when you see her, and smile, and give her a high five or a hug, it matters. If you know her name, it matters.
So today this girl of mine turned ten.
We celebrated with a trip on the light rail, first to Trophy Cupcakes and then to her very first Mariners game, and she got to spend most of the day with not only her parents and brother but her beloved Uncle Aaron and Aunt Morgan and Grandpa Chuck and Grandma Diane. She seemed to love every moment. Full disclosure: we left the game a little early, as it was a night game and we wanted to avoid the crush of people leaving the stadium. She was disappointed at first, but Isaac was totally done by the time we made it to the light rail; he fell asleep on the way to the transit center. Both kids zonked out as soon as we buckled them into the car and snored the entire way home, and both kids changed robotically into pajamas and collapsed in bed within minutes of pulling into our driveway.
"Was it a good day?" I asked my daughter, curling around her in her bed after I tucked her in.
"Uh huh," she said. She pulled her blanked over her head, like she always does. Then she smiled.
"You can give me some extra kisses, if you like," she said.
Saturday, May 28, 2016
Sunday, May 22, 2016
Family Weekend
So it is May, again. May is full of so much, so many feelings. Beginnings and endings. Anniversaries. Rememberings. May is the month in which I fell in love with my husband sixteen years ago. May is the month in which he slipped a ring on my finger. May is the month in which I became someone's mother.
May is a tough month in which to teach, but I have decided to teach with abandon, like a crazy person. Forget the symbolism of the yellow car in The Great Gatsby; find me spectacular sentences instead. My sophomores are not complaining. One of them tiptoed to my desk last week and said, "Ms. Winslow, I actually really like this book." Oh, child. If only you knew how far those whispered words carry my soul.
I am tired, bone-tired, as all teachers are. But at the same time, there is a sweetness to this time of year that I deeply love. It's the anticipation of summer before the feeling of summer going too fast, of fading, flowing between my fingers in the sunshine. Everything is before us, the whole wide expanse of languid shimmering afternoons. What I want this summer is not to be able to say we did this and this and this, although there are things I am looking forward to: a trip home, and a trip to Toronto for the IB of Americas conference. Some of my colleagues are planning exciting trips, and I wonder if someday, I will also want to plan exciting trips during my summer breaks. Right now, summer vacations spent visiting our families are enough, more than enough. And right now, what I deeply love about summer is its slowness. Swimming lessons. Spending the afternoons in the backyard, watching my children run through the sprinkler while I sip iced tea and read. The splash park -- are my children outgrowing it? I hope not, because I love the smell of the water, the sound of their shrieks carrying across the playground. My children are both still young enough to play, just play, and I recognize that this is an incredibly sweet time in our lives.
Next Saturday, my daughter turns ten. Ten years ago, I waddled uncomfortably through the month of May, believing I would still be pregnant into the month of June. What a surprise my girl is. How she continues to surprise us.
We spent the weekend at Great Wolf Lodge as an early birthday celebration, instead of having a birthday party this year. We've never been there, and I didn't know what to expect. On the one hand: our family loves the water. On the other hand: I am deeply introverted, and that's a lot of chaos. In the end, we had a fantastic time, and it gave me the opportunity to watch my children just be exactly who they are. One child is fearless in the water, loves throwing himself under the waves in the wave pool to be tossed around like a little stone, and is a naturally stronger swimmer than his sibling. But he doesn't like rides. Not at the water park, not at the fair, not anywhere. My firstborn never liked to put her face in the water as a little one, and still resisted real swimming until we put her in private lessons with someone who worked with her and said, "You will swim across this pool." But she loves the thrill of the drop on the scariest waterslide. She'll go down facing backwards. She is not afraid of heights. Standing in line for the Howling Tornado, high up on the steps above the water park, she gripped my hand--not because she was scared, but because I was.
"Just look at me, Mom. Look at me. Then you won't be thinking about how high up you are, okay? It's going to be okay."
I have a memory of my parents taking us to an indoor water park when I was about the age my kids are now. There was a wave pool, and a waterslide. I don't remember how big it was, but I remember going down a waterslide again and again by myself for maybe the first time. I remember how I loved the feeling of being tossed around in the water. Decades later, the memory of just having so much fun remains. I hope that's what my children remember from this weekend: how much fun they had, how they loved wearing their little souvenir wolf ears when they weren't in the pool, how excited they were for bunk beds and their own little space in their "wolf den." How they went screaming joyfully down the slides, how they threw themselves ecstatically into the waves, emerging from the water with peals of laughter.
Isaac says he wants to do this for his birthday. Since our kids are born in opposite seasons, this might not be a bad idea; twice a year, six months a part? Maybe. Maybe this will become our family tradition for a year or two: stopping at the Spar in Olympia to eat both on the way down and on the way back (we love it and rarely go, since we're not often in Olympia). Glancing at our kids in the rear-view mirror, smiling at their jumpy anticipation on the way to Grand Mound and their sleeping faces on the way back home. It's a beautiful snapshot, in any season.
May is a tough month in which to teach, but I have decided to teach with abandon, like a crazy person. Forget the symbolism of the yellow car in The Great Gatsby; find me spectacular sentences instead. My sophomores are not complaining. One of them tiptoed to my desk last week and said, "Ms. Winslow, I actually really like this book." Oh, child. If only you knew how far those whispered words carry my soul.
I am tired, bone-tired, as all teachers are. But at the same time, there is a sweetness to this time of year that I deeply love. It's the anticipation of summer before the feeling of summer going too fast, of fading, flowing between my fingers in the sunshine. Everything is before us, the whole wide expanse of languid shimmering afternoons. What I want this summer is not to be able to say we did this and this and this, although there are things I am looking forward to: a trip home, and a trip to Toronto for the IB of Americas conference. Some of my colleagues are planning exciting trips, and I wonder if someday, I will also want to plan exciting trips during my summer breaks. Right now, summer vacations spent visiting our families are enough, more than enough. And right now, what I deeply love about summer is its slowness. Swimming lessons. Spending the afternoons in the backyard, watching my children run through the sprinkler while I sip iced tea and read. The splash park -- are my children outgrowing it? I hope not, because I love the smell of the water, the sound of their shrieks carrying across the playground. My children are both still young enough to play, just play, and I recognize that this is an incredibly sweet time in our lives.
Next Saturday, my daughter turns ten. Ten years ago, I waddled uncomfortably through the month of May, believing I would still be pregnant into the month of June. What a surprise my girl is. How she continues to surprise us.
We spent the weekend at Great Wolf Lodge as an early birthday celebration, instead of having a birthday party this year. We've never been there, and I didn't know what to expect. On the one hand: our family loves the water. On the other hand: I am deeply introverted, and that's a lot of chaos. In the end, we had a fantastic time, and it gave me the opportunity to watch my children just be exactly who they are. One child is fearless in the water, loves throwing himself under the waves in the wave pool to be tossed around like a little stone, and is a naturally stronger swimmer than his sibling. But he doesn't like rides. Not at the water park, not at the fair, not anywhere. My firstborn never liked to put her face in the water as a little one, and still resisted real swimming until we put her in private lessons with someone who worked with her and said, "You will swim across this pool." But she loves the thrill of the drop on the scariest waterslide. She'll go down facing backwards. She is not afraid of heights. Standing in line for the Howling Tornado, high up on the steps above the water park, she gripped my hand--not because she was scared, but because I was.
"Just look at me, Mom. Look at me. Then you won't be thinking about how high up you are, okay? It's going to be okay."
I have a memory of my parents taking us to an indoor water park when I was about the age my kids are now. There was a wave pool, and a waterslide. I don't remember how big it was, but I remember going down a waterslide again and again by myself for maybe the first time. I remember how I loved the feeling of being tossed around in the water. Decades later, the memory of just having so much fun remains. I hope that's what my children remember from this weekend: how much fun they had, how they loved wearing their little souvenir wolf ears when they weren't in the pool, how excited they were for bunk beds and their own little space in their "wolf den." How they went screaming joyfully down the slides, how they threw themselves ecstatically into the waves, emerging from the water with peals of laughter.
Isaac says he wants to do this for his birthday. Since our kids are born in opposite seasons, this might not be a bad idea; twice a year, six months a part? Maybe. Maybe this will become our family tradition for a year or two: stopping at the Spar in Olympia to eat both on the way down and on the way back (we love it and rarely go, since we're not often in Olympia). Glancing at our kids in the rear-view mirror, smiling at their jumpy anticipation on the way to Grand Mound and their sleeping faces on the way back home. It's a beautiful snapshot, in any season.
Thursday, May 12, 2016
Fear, Anger, Love
May is doing a beautiful job of keeping us all unsettled and exhausted, to say the least.
It's been a chaotic week, and as I posted on Facebook the other night, I am stressed in every single direction. But a phone call from a dear friend helped reset my perspective a bit; I am stressed in a life I love, and I am stressed in work I am privileged to do. All is right with the things that matter.
But I'm struggling a bit right now, because like so many other teachers, I'm tired. I'm trying so hard not to let relentless negativity affect the way I approach the last few weeks of the year, but it is hard sometimes. Let me tell you, though, if you're the kind of person who turns every single conversation into a "vent," I am going to work very hard to avoid you. I cannot be angry all the time, especially about things that don't really matter in the long run. Or about things that, frankly, are a matter of attitude more than anything else. That sucks the energy right out of me, and I don't have any to spare. Or I need to save it for things that do matter--and turn my anger into something positive.
I had a great discussion with some of my kids today. They are also unsettled, for lots of reasons. The end of the school year is crazy, and sometimes crazy hard. It's hard for some of my kids in a way it's not hard for me, and I need to listen to them.
We're all upset by the recent shootings in our city, and I'm upset by some of the responses to it. Look: we should absolutely be asking what's happening, and we should absolutely be passionate about making our city a safer place to live. An innocent man was gunned down while he was out jogging the other night, and I made my husband promise that he's not going to be out running after dark for awhile. I expected him to fight me on this, but he didn't; he saw how upset I was. (Also, it's summer, and there is no reason he needs to run when it's dark.) If we are going to continue to build our city, we also need to increase the services and support that growth requires. Yes, I'm upset. Yes, I'm unsettled. Yes, I'm afraid sometimes, but I've learned to always be a little afraid. When I was nine, a girl who lived near me was kidnapped, her skull found in the mountains a year later. When I was in fourth grade, one of my classmates was nearly abducted on her way to school; she managed to run away, but whenever anyone asked her about it, her face froze and she turned away. Four years ago, a woman in my home state was murdered while she was out for a jog on a country road. And I grew up in a place where everyone looked like me, in a place where mothers felt free to turn their children loose in the neighborhoods to roam with their friends for the entire summer.
Yes, I'm afraid sometimes. No, I'm not leaving.
It is not as simple as blaming a certain thing, or a certain group of people. If I never read the word "ghetto" or "trash" again in connection with people who rent apartments, I'll be thrilled. If I never have to hear the words, "SOME of them...MOST of them..." I'll be thrilled. And who are "they"? Who are our neighbors, exactly? Do you know what's heartbreaking? To hear a student talk about what it feels like to read these comments on social media when they live in one of these apartment complexes, to hear them feel like they need to defend their existence: "My mom works two jobs, and we don't have a lot of money, but that doesn't mean we sell drugs, it doesn't mean we're ghetto, we're not killin' people." But they hear that they don't belong here, because the city looks nothing like it did twenty years ago. ("SOME are good people...")
If you are one of those people posting these things: be aware. When you call someone trash because they're one of "those people" who rents one of those apartments in your city, you diminish someone's humanity. When you tell people they should get out while they can, you're speaking from a place of fear, and that can turn into something far uglier.
And I'm not leaving, because this is my home. I will not listen to "Get out while you can." Because I love this life I have right here. I will continue to tell anyone who listens that my children are gaining more than they are losing by attending our neighborhood school. I will continue to be fiercely loyal to their teachers, who are just fucking incredible and you will not convince me that my kids will have better ones in a prettier school. I will continue to be frustrated by my own students, and I will continue to feel that I am not enough for them, and I will continue to try to be better for them, because they deserve the best I can give. These kids, right here, the ones who frustrate and enrage and worry me, the ones who make me angry with their apathy, the ones I don't know how to help, the ones who take my preconceptions and my own prejudices and shatter them and allow me to love them. I will continue to belong to the church community right here that challenges me and pushes me out of my comfort zone, because it asks this of me: that I serve my neighbor. And who is my neighbor?
My students and I talked about social protest and social justice and perception today. What makes us angry? The perception of teenagers. The perception of people who look a certain way, who live in a certain place. The perception of homelessness. The perception of poor people who don't spend their money on the "right" things. We talked about a lot of things, and I saw their eyes flash with passion and anger but we didn't stop with anger because anger alone is poison, anger alone becomes bitterness, and bitterness leads to posting shit on social media or bitching about everything all the time instead of contributing something real to real people.
I just wish I knew how to do better. I just wish I wasn't so tired and sad right now, tonight. But I think it's also okay to sit in the sadness for awhile, as long as I don't stay there, as long as I can breathe deeply and talk to people I love who lift me up, who stand with me, who know that this is hard work that we are doing but dammit, the fact that it is hard does not give us permission to stop. Know this, lest you think I am better than I actually am: Sometimes I want to stop. I do. Sometimes I want something safer, something easier. Sometimes I want the luxury of complacency. Sometimes this does feel too hard. Sometimes I become bitchy and bitter, and I am deeply sorry about the times I may have fed that in someone else. Sometimes I think about other places I could work, other jobs I could do. I think about other places we could go, and what our lives would look like.
But when I think about the people who truly inspire me, the people who make me want to be better, the people I love, the people I want to be when I grow up, they're the people in the trenches with me. I know I'm right where I need and want to be right now.
I don't believe I was put on this earth to be happy. I believe I was put on this earth to contribute something to it, and I choose to do that here, in my community, in this place where I have put down roots, where I work hard, where I love. Deeply, messily, imperfectly.
And that makes me happy.
It's been a chaotic week, and as I posted on Facebook the other night, I am stressed in every single direction. But a phone call from a dear friend helped reset my perspective a bit; I am stressed in a life I love, and I am stressed in work I am privileged to do. All is right with the things that matter.
But I'm struggling a bit right now, because like so many other teachers, I'm tired. I'm trying so hard not to let relentless negativity affect the way I approach the last few weeks of the year, but it is hard sometimes. Let me tell you, though, if you're the kind of person who turns every single conversation into a "vent," I am going to work very hard to avoid you. I cannot be angry all the time, especially about things that don't really matter in the long run. Or about things that, frankly, are a matter of attitude more than anything else. That sucks the energy right out of me, and I don't have any to spare. Or I need to save it for things that do matter--and turn my anger into something positive.
I had a great discussion with some of my kids today. They are also unsettled, for lots of reasons. The end of the school year is crazy, and sometimes crazy hard. It's hard for some of my kids in a way it's not hard for me, and I need to listen to them.
We're all upset by the recent shootings in our city, and I'm upset by some of the responses to it. Look: we should absolutely be asking what's happening, and we should absolutely be passionate about making our city a safer place to live. An innocent man was gunned down while he was out jogging the other night, and I made my husband promise that he's not going to be out running after dark for awhile. I expected him to fight me on this, but he didn't; he saw how upset I was. (Also, it's summer, and there is no reason he needs to run when it's dark.) If we are going to continue to build our city, we also need to increase the services and support that growth requires. Yes, I'm upset. Yes, I'm unsettled. Yes, I'm afraid sometimes, but I've learned to always be a little afraid. When I was nine, a girl who lived near me was kidnapped, her skull found in the mountains a year later. When I was in fourth grade, one of my classmates was nearly abducted on her way to school; she managed to run away, but whenever anyone asked her about it, her face froze and she turned away. Four years ago, a woman in my home state was murdered while she was out for a jog on a country road. And I grew up in a place where everyone looked like me, in a place where mothers felt free to turn their children loose in the neighborhoods to roam with their friends for the entire summer.
Yes, I'm afraid sometimes. No, I'm not leaving.
It is not as simple as blaming a certain thing, or a certain group of people. If I never read the word "ghetto" or "trash" again in connection with people who rent apartments, I'll be thrilled. If I never have to hear the words, "SOME of them...MOST of them..." I'll be thrilled. And who are "they"? Who are our neighbors, exactly? Do you know what's heartbreaking? To hear a student talk about what it feels like to read these comments on social media when they live in one of these apartment complexes, to hear them feel like they need to defend their existence: "My mom works two jobs, and we don't have a lot of money, but that doesn't mean we sell drugs, it doesn't mean we're ghetto, we're not killin' people." But they hear that they don't belong here, because the city looks nothing like it did twenty years ago. ("SOME are good people...")
If you are one of those people posting these things: be aware. When you call someone trash because they're one of "those people" who rents one of those apartments in your city, you diminish someone's humanity. When you tell people they should get out while they can, you're speaking from a place of fear, and that can turn into something far uglier.
And I'm not leaving, because this is my home. I will not listen to "Get out while you can." Because I love this life I have right here. I will continue to tell anyone who listens that my children are gaining more than they are losing by attending our neighborhood school. I will continue to be fiercely loyal to their teachers, who are just fucking incredible and you will not convince me that my kids will have better ones in a prettier school. I will continue to be frustrated by my own students, and I will continue to feel that I am not enough for them, and I will continue to try to be better for them, because they deserve the best I can give. These kids, right here, the ones who frustrate and enrage and worry me, the ones who make me angry with their apathy, the ones I don't know how to help, the ones who take my preconceptions and my own prejudices and shatter them and allow me to love them. I will continue to belong to the church community right here that challenges me and pushes me out of my comfort zone, because it asks this of me: that I serve my neighbor. And who is my neighbor?
My students and I talked about social protest and social justice and perception today. What makes us angry? The perception of teenagers. The perception of people who look a certain way, who live in a certain place. The perception of homelessness. The perception of poor people who don't spend their money on the "right" things. We talked about a lot of things, and I saw their eyes flash with passion and anger but we didn't stop with anger because anger alone is poison, anger alone becomes bitterness, and bitterness leads to posting shit on social media or bitching about everything all the time instead of contributing something real to real people.
I just wish I knew how to do better. I just wish I wasn't so tired and sad right now, tonight. But I think it's also okay to sit in the sadness for awhile, as long as I don't stay there, as long as I can breathe deeply and talk to people I love who lift me up, who stand with me, who know that this is hard work that we are doing but dammit, the fact that it is hard does not give us permission to stop. Know this, lest you think I am better than I actually am: Sometimes I want to stop. I do. Sometimes I want something safer, something easier. Sometimes I want the luxury of complacency. Sometimes this does feel too hard. Sometimes I become bitchy and bitter, and I am deeply sorry about the times I may have fed that in someone else. Sometimes I think about other places I could work, other jobs I could do. I think about other places we could go, and what our lives would look like.
But when I think about the people who truly inspire me, the people who make me want to be better, the people I love, the people I want to be when I grow up, they're the people in the trenches with me. I know I'm right where I need and want to be right now.
I don't believe I was put on this earth to be happy. I believe I was put on this earth to contribute something to it, and I choose to do that here, in my community, in this place where I have put down roots, where I work hard, where I love. Deeply, messily, imperfectly.
And that makes me happy.
Sunday, May 8, 2016
Mother's Day Snapshot
My husband and children are wonderful about making sure Mother's Day is close to perfect for me. In the last few years we've built a tradition around Mother's Day that includes the following:
The kids are extra-sweet in the morning, often bringing me breakfast in bed (which they wanted to do this year, but we decided to go to church early in order to have more of the day afterwards, and also, I was up before they were)
A nap
A trip to Seattle, where they deposit me at the Elliott Bay Book Company and I have time to browse, drink coffee (possibly/probably followed by a glass of wine if I'm there long enough), and read and write by myself
Dinner out (Veggie Grill or the Elliott Bay Brewery)
Matt brought home roses this weekend, and they are beautiful.
He also generally tries to make sure the kitchen is cleaned up before we go anywhere. This afternoon we were running a little behind schedule, though, and so by the time we wanted to leave the kitchen was still cluttery with breakfast and lunch dishes.
"This will be okay, though, right?" I said, fretting.
"YES. I will clean this all up tonight. AND I'll straighten up all my shirts in the closet."
"Are you sure? It won't be like, if I leave it like this today it'll STAY like this until we come home from school on Monday? Because I can't deal."
"It will be fine. We'll clean it all up."
"Because right now I feel a little bit like the time I didn't clean my apartment in college before I went home for Christmas break. And Christmas was almost ruined because I couldn't stop thinking about how I was going back to a messy apartment in January."
"Aw, come here. I want to tell you something about that." And Matt wrapped me in his arms.
"What," I mumbled against his shirt.
He kissed my head. "That is some bull shit," he said.
The kids are extra-sweet in the morning, often bringing me breakfast in bed (which they wanted to do this year, but we decided to go to church early in order to have more of the day afterwards, and also, I was up before they were)
A nap
A trip to Seattle, where they deposit me at the Elliott Bay Book Company and I have time to browse, drink coffee (possibly/probably followed by a glass of wine if I'm there long enough), and read and write by myself
Dinner out (Veggie Grill or the Elliott Bay Brewery)
Matt brought home roses this weekend, and they are beautiful.
He also generally tries to make sure the kitchen is cleaned up before we go anywhere. This afternoon we were running a little behind schedule, though, and so by the time we wanted to leave the kitchen was still cluttery with breakfast and lunch dishes.
"This will be okay, though, right?" I said, fretting.
"YES. I will clean this all up tonight. AND I'll straighten up all my shirts in the closet."
"Are you sure? It won't be like, if I leave it like this today it'll STAY like this until we come home from school on Monday? Because I can't deal."
"It will be fine. We'll clean it all up."
"Because right now I feel a little bit like the time I didn't clean my apartment in college before I went home for Christmas break. And Christmas was almost ruined because I couldn't stop thinking about how I was going back to a messy apartment in January."
"Aw, come here. I want to tell you something about that." And Matt wrapped me in his arms.
"What," I mumbled against his shirt.
He kissed my head. "That is some bull shit," he said.
Friday, May 6, 2016
Kids, Mother's Day Edition, (mostly) unedited
Months ago there was this thing going around social media, just questions mothers would ask their kids. And then they'd post the answers. I wrote them all out in my journal. When we were in Leavenworth at the end of January, the kids and I found ourselves in a coffee shop while Matt went skiing, and I took that opportunity to get their answers. I never posted them anywhere, but in honor of Mother's Day, I'll share them here.
1. What is something I always say to you?
Suzannah: "Stop."
Isaac: "Who is my love?"
2. What makes you happy?
Suzannah: Watching Harry Potter.
Isaac: Sledding!
(My note: We were in Leavenworth at the time. There was lots of sledding.)
3. What makes you sad?
Suzannah: Not playing XBox.
Isaac: When Zannah hits me.
(Suzannah: "AHEM. It's not always on purpose.")
(Me: "Not playing XBox? You've played XBox, like, twice. I forgot Daddy even had one.")
4. How do I make you laugh?
Suzannah: By telling Dad to pick up his socks.
Isaac: Tickling and zerberting me!
5. What was I like as a child?
Suzannah: Like me.
Isaac: Funny!
6. How old am I?
Suzannah: 36 and something?
Isaac: Seventy-eight?
7. How tall am I?
Suzannah: Five feet and something?
Isaac: Sixteen inches.
8. What is my favorite thing to do?
Suzannah: Be with me and Isaac.
Isaac: Reading.
9. What do I do when you're not around?
Suzannah: Write.
Isaac: Go wander around places.
10. What am I really good at?
Suzannah: Writing and reading.
Isaac: Swimming.
11. What is something I'm not good at?
Suzannah: Being messy like Daddy.
Isaac: Driving a car.
(Me: "What? I AM GOOD AT DRIVING A CAR.")
12. What do I do for a job?
Suzannah: Teach writing.
Isaac: Selling houses? Teach?
13. What is my favorite food?
Suzannah: Pho.
Isaac: Stuff that doesn't have sugar.
14. What do you enjoy doing with me?
Suzannah: Playing Uno.
Isaac: Going to Freighthouse Square.
15. What is something I do that upsets you?
Suzannah: Take away XBox.
(Me: "Are you kidding me? You've played it like twice, because Daddy dug it out one day.")
Isaac: Zerberting my tummy.
1. What is something I always say to you?
Suzannah: "Stop."
Isaac: "Who is my love?"
2. What makes you happy?
Suzannah: Watching Harry Potter.
Isaac: Sledding!
(My note: We were in Leavenworth at the time. There was lots of sledding.)
3. What makes you sad?
Suzannah: Not playing XBox.
Isaac: When Zannah hits me.
(Suzannah: "AHEM. It's not always on purpose.")
(Me: "Not playing XBox? You've played XBox, like, twice. I forgot Daddy even had one.")
4. How do I make you laugh?
Suzannah: By telling Dad to pick up his socks.
Isaac: Tickling and zerberting me!
5. What was I like as a child?
Suzannah: Like me.
Isaac: Funny!
6. How old am I?
Suzannah: 36 and something?
Isaac: Seventy-eight?
7. How tall am I?
Suzannah: Five feet and something?
Isaac: Sixteen inches.
8. What is my favorite thing to do?
Suzannah: Be with me and Isaac.
Isaac: Reading.
9. What do I do when you're not around?
Suzannah: Write.
Isaac: Go wander around places.
10. What am I really good at?
Suzannah: Writing and reading.
Isaac: Swimming.
11. What is something I'm not good at?
Suzannah: Being messy like Daddy.
Isaac: Driving a car.
(Me: "What? I AM GOOD AT DRIVING A CAR.")
12. What do I do for a job?
Suzannah: Teach writing.
Isaac: Selling houses? Teach?
13. What is my favorite food?
Suzannah: Pho.
Isaac: Stuff that doesn't have sugar.
14. What do you enjoy doing with me?
Suzannah: Playing Uno.
Isaac: Going to Freighthouse Square.
15. What is something I do that upsets you?
Suzannah: Take away XBox.
(Me: "Are you kidding me? You've played it like twice, because Daddy dug it out one day.")
Isaac: Zerberting my tummy.
Monday, May 2, 2016
Because I am old and cranky and sensitive, I unfollow people on Facebook all the time. I appreciate the choice I have to not read what I know will likely upset or annoy me on social media.
But I unfollow a good handful of people I love or respect in this weird thing called "real life." So occasionally I try to remember to check in. (This gets harder the longer my "unfollow" list becomes, but it also means the stuff popping up in my feed is pretty mellow, for the most part. So I do the best I can.)
Checking in is not always a good idea.
Let me just say this: I'd much rather have a bleeding heart than one so flinty I could strike sparks against it.
It has been a disappointing day.
But I unfollow a good handful of people I love or respect in this weird thing called "real life." So occasionally I try to remember to check in. (This gets harder the longer my "unfollow" list becomes, but it also means the stuff popping up in my feed is pretty mellow, for the most part. So I do the best I can.)
Checking in is not always a good idea.
Let me just say this: I'd much rather have a bleeding heart than one so flinty I could strike sparks against it.
It has been a disappointing day.
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