Perfect days include things like waking up to the smell of pancakes, going for a run in the cold November sunshine, watching my daughter do some really impressive handstands at her gymnastics class (and squeezing in a little reading during that hour as well; I just started The Lowland, by Jhumpa Lahiri), eating a perfect grilled cheese (my husband makes those!), buying a new bookshelf at IKEA, listening to my son inquire about “going to ‘Kea,” eating pizza at Piecora’s, exchanging text messages with my dad in which I pretend to know something about sports and he totally calls my bluff but seems to enjoy my effort, browsing at the Elliott Bay Book Company and crawling into the little castle there with my son where we read a Batman book together, and getting the kids to bed at a reasonable hour so Matt and I can watch Mad Men and eat chocolate.
At the end of my life, I want to remember totally ordinary days like this, and how happy they made me. I’ve read that “Top 5 Regrets” article once or twice now, the one people keep posting on Facebook -- the “deathbed confessions” people make to nurses or whatever -- and of course it was totally predictable; people wished they’d worked less and spent more time with their families and spoken their mind and been true to themselves. I didn’t read that list and feel like I was missing something important, probably because I speak my mind too damn much already, but there was one really simple thing like, “I wish I’d let myself be happy.” Sometimes I think the simplest way to do that is to just stay present in my life, which is perhaps why I write all these blog entries about very ordinary things. I also find myself much less concerned with what other people have (as opposed to what I have) or with what I think I’m supposed to want that I don’t have. That sounds so trite, and so obvious, but clearly this weighs on people.
Anyway, I did not actually buy any books this afternoon. I feel this should be noted, because it’s a rare thing for me to wander around my favorite bookstore without buying something, but I have a solid handful of really great books to read right at this moment, and I anticipate going back soon anyway -- it’s my favorite destination for a mental health day, and I think I might need one of those soon. This was a strange, emotionally draining week at school, and when I found myself losing my mind on Thursday afternoon one of the friends who knows me best gently suggested that I take a day off soon. Thing is, I’m not really trained for mental health days anymore, since I use those days to stay home with my children when they pop a fever or have horrible coughs and ear infections. But I realized that it is the end of November and I haven’t had to stay home with them yet this year -- a first. I mean, I haven’t made it to the end of November ever since I’ve had kids, and in the two years before that I was working on my master’s degree and taking classes on weekends, so I took a Monday off every month or two...anyway, the point is, I think I need a day off soon.
Of course what will probably happen is that I’ll take a day to clear my head and the kids will promptly come down with The Crud. (Then again, if that happens, I’ll feel more equipped to handle it with patience and grace.) But even those times bring with them a healthy dose of perspective; after talking with a friend about her sick child this week, I realized that the things that were weighing so heavily on me this week will ultimately take care of themselves, one way or another, and even if it doesn’t happen the way I want, I will still be left with days like this: pancakes, November sunshine, my daughter’s beautiful and fierce energy as she learns to trust her body in a handstand, my son’s requests to do puzzles or read Batman books with him, and these moments of watching my husband put together a bookshelf for me on a Saturday night.
And tomorrow I’m going to add the rest of our Christmas decorations to all that. Not the tree yet, of course, but the other things, and the Christmas music. I’m almost ready for my annual viewing (or three) of Pieces of April, which is the perfect Thanksgiving movie and one of my favorite movies, period, and once I’ve seen that a few times it’s about time for Love Actually. Matt might even grumble a bit tomorrow, because he believes no sign of Christmas should show its face until the day after Thanksgiving (and he’d probably prefer the second week in December, the big Scrooge). But he will humor me anyway and get down the bins I couldn’t reach myself on Tuesday when I came home from school feeling a little sad (though I did set up my Dickens Village houses; those I could reach), and maybe he’ll just be thankful that he didn’t come home to all the Christmas decorations in the living room on November 2, which is when I’m ready to put them up. Some arguments we’ll have every year of our marriage, and I hope we have this one about eighty times.
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Housekeeping
We nearly drove to Seattle this afternoon; we have some passes to the IMAX theater at the Pacific Science Center, and it seemed like a good day for that -- cold and gray and so Novemberish. But in the shuffle to get out the door to gymnastics class, Matt said, “We could just stay home -- I’d be fine with that, too.” I paused for a moment, because I didn’t want the rest of the afternoon to be about stir-crazy kiddos whining about watching videos because it wasn’t quite nice enough to spend the day outside. But only a moment. It might have been a nice day to visit the IMAX theater, but it was an even better day to hunker down at home.
I ran four miles this afternoon. It was cold and windy but I had new music and I felt so good out there, running through the damp streets with the Saturday afternoon traffic pulsing around me. Matt took the kids out for a bike ride while I did that, and they came home red-cheeked and cheerful. We put together an easy dinner with the last of our weekly veggie box, and the companionable closeness -- Matt peeling and dicing turnips while I scrubbed sunchokes, the kids digging out some of their neglected toys in the family room -- is what I love most about these nights when we’re all home together.
We’ve been cleaning out toys, another November ritual. Four years ago, my parents brought out my fabulous Strawberry Shortcake dollhouse for Suzannah, complete with every other Strawberry Shortcake accessory I collected in my girlhood -- probably thirty dolls, plus the trolley, plus the tricycle...I was very pregnant with Isaac at the time, and I hoped that dollhouse would provide some engaging playtime for Suzannah while I was busy with her newborn sibling (or even before that, when I was too tired and cumbersome to be much fun for her. Also, the dolls made nice rewards for using the potty). I remember that house as such a clear part of my own childhood, and I was eager to pass it on to my own children, so it made a welcome addition to our little home. But four years later, both of my children have mostly outgrown it, and our little house just doesn’t have the space for it anymore. After clearing it with the kids, we packed it up and sent it back to my parents via my brother this weekend. It’s a little bittersweet, not so much because I’ll miss the house itself, but because it’s another reminder that my children are growing older, leaving their sweet toddlerhoods behind.
I have to say, though, that I do love that bit of extra space in our family room. It’s still very much a play room, dominated by toy bins and shelves, but man, that house took up some space. (How did we ever fit an exercise bike in here?) We’re also beginning our annual toy purge before Christmas comes. I don’t know how we accumulate so much stuff, much of which I swear we didn’t buy, but whatever, whatever. I love clearing out what we don’t use or need, and the kids enjoy rediscovering toys they haven’t seen in quite some time. They are blessedly cooperative about sorting through and bidding farewell to things they don’t play with much anymore (although this week Suzannah rediscovered this horrible little harmonica she hasn’t played in forever and she refuses to give it up; likewise, Isaac decided he cannot possibly part with a particular wooden toy composed of irritating little blocks that scatter everywhere, even though I’m not sure he’s ever really played with it).
Matt has been at a convention in Las Vegas all week (and has no desire to take us there for a family vacation, it seems, which is fine with me). Naturally, I found myself appreciating what a great team we generally make, although the kids were good to me this week, and we fell into a comfortable groove right away. They were sweet and cooperative, and I’m not sure we even had any real meltdowns. Meals were cooked, stories were read, bedtimes went more or less smoothly. It’s pretty great to feel that my kids and I make a good team, too. What was harder were the little things, like having to stay up late enough on Thursday night to let the dog out one more time even though I desperately wanted to go to bed as soon as the kids went down -- but if I’d let her out then she’d have barked me out of bed at four in the morning. And I don’t sleep well alone. The first night I felt like I’d hardly slept. When Matt is gone, I can’t relax; I prowl around the house checking and re-checking the locks and making sure my children are breathing, and then I crawl into bed and lie there, hyper-sensitive to any sound. If the kids wake in the night (which is rare but still does sometimes happen, especially with Isaac, who is prone to hollering at random intervals that he is thirsty or heard a noise) I am usually the one that hears them first anyway, but when we’re both home I feel pretty easy about it all. When I know it’s all me, it’s harder to relax. It reminded me of those rare nights when I’ve slept in a different room in our house because one of us is sick. Sleeping in a different bedroom, closer to the street instead of the backyard, is rather disorienting; I hear different sounds -- cars driving by on the street instead of the wind in the backyard.
I’d adjusted by the last night and slept fairly well, but I’m glad he’s home just the same. I keep a cleaner house when I’m the one running the show, but I’ll trade that for having my partner to laugh with, to have him floss our daughter’s teeth while I rock with our son, and to be able to reach across the bed in the dark and find him solidly there.
I ran four miles this afternoon. It was cold and windy but I had new music and I felt so good out there, running through the damp streets with the Saturday afternoon traffic pulsing around me. Matt took the kids out for a bike ride while I did that, and they came home red-cheeked and cheerful. We put together an easy dinner with the last of our weekly veggie box, and the companionable closeness -- Matt peeling and dicing turnips while I scrubbed sunchokes, the kids digging out some of their neglected toys in the family room -- is what I love most about these nights when we’re all home together.
We’ve been cleaning out toys, another November ritual. Four years ago, my parents brought out my fabulous Strawberry Shortcake dollhouse for Suzannah, complete with every other Strawberry Shortcake accessory I collected in my girlhood -- probably thirty dolls, plus the trolley, plus the tricycle...I was very pregnant with Isaac at the time, and I hoped that dollhouse would provide some engaging playtime for Suzannah while I was busy with her newborn sibling (or even before that, when I was too tired and cumbersome to be much fun for her. Also, the dolls made nice rewards for using the potty). I remember that house as such a clear part of my own childhood, and I was eager to pass it on to my own children, so it made a welcome addition to our little home. But four years later, both of my children have mostly outgrown it, and our little house just doesn’t have the space for it anymore. After clearing it with the kids, we packed it up and sent it back to my parents via my brother this weekend. It’s a little bittersweet, not so much because I’ll miss the house itself, but because it’s another reminder that my children are growing older, leaving their sweet toddlerhoods behind.
I have to say, though, that I do love that bit of extra space in our family room. It’s still very much a play room, dominated by toy bins and shelves, but man, that house took up some space. (How did we ever fit an exercise bike in here?) We’re also beginning our annual toy purge before Christmas comes. I don’t know how we accumulate so much stuff, much of which I swear we didn’t buy, but whatever, whatever. I love clearing out what we don’t use or need, and the kids enjoy rediscovering toys they haven’t seen in quite some time. They are blessedly cooperative about sorting through and bidding farewell to things they don’t play with much anymore (although this week Suzannah rediscovered this horrible little harmonica she hasn’t played in forever and she refuses to give it up; likewise, Isaac decided he cannot possibly part with a particular wooden toy composed of irritating little blocks that scatter everywhere, even though I’m not sure he’s ever really played with it).
Matt has been at a convention in Las Vegas all week (and has no desire to take us there for a family vacation, it seems, which is fine with me). Naturally, I found myself appreciating what a great team we generally make, although the kids were good to me this week, and we fell into a comfortable groove right away. They were sweet and cooperative, and I’m not sure we even had any real meltdowns. Meals were cooked, stories were read, bedtimes went more or less smoothly. It’s pretty great to feel that my kids and I make a good team, too. What was harder were the little things, like having to stay up late enough on Thursday night to let the dog out one more time even though I desperately wanted to go to bed as soon as the kids went down -- but if I’d let her out then she’d have barked me out of bed at four in the morning. And I don’t sleep well alone. The first night I felt like I’d hardly slept. When Matt is gone, I can’t relax; I prowl around the house checking and re-checking the locks and making sure my children are breathing, and then I crawl into bed and lie there, hyper-sensitive to any sound. If the kids wake in the night (which is rare but still does sometimes happen, especially with Isaac, who is prone to hollering at random intervals that he is thirsty or heard a noise) I am usually the one that hears them first anyway, but when we’re both home I feel pretty easy about it all. When I know it’s all me, it’s harder to relax. It reminded me of those rare nights when I’ve slept in a different room in our house because one of us is sick. Sleeping in a different bedroom, closer to the street instead of the backyard, is rather disorienting; I hear different sounds -- cars driving by on the street instead of the wind in the backyard.
I’d adjusted by the last night and slept fairly well, but I’m glad he’s home just the same. I keep a cleaner house when I’m the one running the show, but I’ll trade that for having my partner to laugh with, to have him floss our daughter’s teeth while I rock with our son, and to be able to reach across the bed in the dark and find him solidly there.
Friday, November 8, 2013
This life
If a sophomore boy near the back of class next to the window suddenly starts to snicker with one of his buddies, especially if that sophomore boy hasn’t bothered to check out the book he’s supposed to have for your class and so clearly isn’t spending this time reading it, be suspicious. Trust me, if he seems happy, it’s not a good thing. Maybe next time instead of merely raising your eyebrows at him (to which he shrugs dramatically and goes, “What?”) you might casually stroll over to his desk, and you will see his artwork before he stealthily tapes it to the window behind your closed blinds. And then you can just avoid the part of your day when the bell rings, the kids spill out of your classroom, and a student you know from another class pokes his head in and says, “Um, yeah, you definitely have a penis taped to your window.”
For the love.
So that was my Wednesday afternoon. I didn’t really have time to dwell on it, though, because conferences began immediately after school. I ran around gathering progress reports, a stack of papers to grade, everything else I planned to take home that evening, plus a cup of fresh coffee to sustain me through the next few hours. I burst through the library doors to claim my table.
“How’s it going?” asked a colleague.
“Oh, you know. Had a penis taped to my window this afternoon, but other than that...”
“A drawing, I hope.”
“Yeah. Not a very good one, though.”
These conversations actually happen as part of my day job. Be very jealous.
I’ve spent the last couple of days at school, late into the evening. Parent conferences are exhausting, but I secretly really like them. Those little personal connections matter, even if it’s just a five-minute conversation. I love that they can give me a completely different perspective on a kid I see every day in class -- or, for that matter, the parents of the kids I see every day in class. It’s a time when I really feel like we’re all on the same page. I think that, for the most part, parents see that I care deeply about these kids, and I think it’s good for us teachers to see that parents, even when they’re a little intense, really love them too, and everything they do or say is driven by that fierce love. That love makes us all a little crazy sometimes.
This morning, Matt and I found ourselves on the other side of the table at Suzannah’s conference. She is still so young that all I really care about is that she’s curious, that she loves learning. I care not one bit about her reading level or whatever, because I trust that she’ll get to where she needs to be when she’s ready. For that reason I never check her online progress reports; I talk to her teacher every single day when I pick her up and also trust she’d give me a clue if there were any real issues. I appreciate the things that are challenging for Suzannah; I also think it’s okay if some things are “really easy” (as she says sometimes) because I know she’ll be humbled soon enough. Basically, I try not to worry too much or let my own ego get in the way of her learning. That said, today when her teacher told us how fluent she is in reading and how well she does in math, I couldn’t help but feel a little thrill. I do so love watching her grow. (Suzannah is still quite shy at these conferences; she really doesn’t love to be the center of attention, or at least at the center of conversations about her. So I tried not to embarrass her too much.)
And now the rest of the weekend is ours. Suzannah and I had a lovely mother-daughter day after her conference, mostly because she let me have a little nap before we did anything. (How wonderful it is to have a second-grader who can entertain herself while her tired mama steals a rest on the couch.) I took her to lunch, and then she sat in a salon chair next to me while I had my hair trimmed. We spent a good chunk of the afternoon at the library, where I worked on a poem for a workshop I’m taking and she worked on her reading log for school, and then she read and played a few games on one of the computers while I finished up my assignment and did a little reading of my own. We picked up Isaac a little early today, and back at home I changed into flannel pants and made popcorn for the three of us.
I love it. This life. These ordinary moments. Changing into pajama pants at 4:30 in the afternoon while my son changes into his (too-small, fraying, slightly dirty) Iron Man costume. Snacking on popcorn while I unload the dishwasher. Slicing sunchokes and layering them with purple kale and a bit of red onion in a casserole dish, covering it all with breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese and hoping it makes a decent dinner since I’ve never cooked this before. (It did. Matt and I topped our servings with fried eggs, slightly runny.) This is still my favorite time of year. The leaves are falling faster, now; yesterday morning a sudden storm tore them from the branches in swirls, and sidewalks are buried in damp red and yellow piles. Evening comes early. There is the sense of pulling inward, of hunkering down for the winter. I notice the lights in people’s houses as we drive by, the way they are framed against the dark of these November evenings. I hope our windows look like that from the outside -- warm, cozy, with just enough light to read by once we tuck our children into bed for the night.
For the love.
So that was my Wednesday afternoon. I didn’t really have time to dwell on it, though, because conferences began immediately after school. I ran around gathering progress reports, a stack of papers to grade, everything else I planned to take home that evening, plus a cup of fresh coffee to sustain me through the next few hours. I burst through the library doors to claim my table.
“How’s it going?” asked a colleague.
“Oh, you know. Had a penis taped to my window this afternoon, but other than that...”
“A drawing, I hope.”
“Yeah. Not a very good one, though.”
These conversations actually happen as part of my day job. Be very jealous.
I’ve spent the last couple of days at school, late into the evening. Parent conferences are exhausting, but I secretly really like them. Those little personal connections matter, even if it’s just a five-minute conversation. I love that they can give me a completely different perspective on a kid I see every day in class -- or, for that matter, the parents of the kids I see every day in class. It’s a time when I really feel like we’re all on the same page. I think that, for the most part, parents see that I care deeply about these kids, and I think it’s good for us teachers to see that parents, even when they’re a little intense, really love them too, and everything they do or say is driven by that fierce love. That love makes us all a little crazy sometimes.
This morning, Matt and I found ourselves on the other side of the table at Suzannah’s conference. She is still so young that all I really care about is that she’s curious, that she loves learning. I care not one bit about her reading level or whatever, because I trust that she’ll get to where she needs to be when she’s ready. For that reason I never check her online progress reports; I talk to her teacher every single day when I pick her up and also trust she’d give me a clue if there were any real issues. I appreciate the things that are challenging for Suzannah; I also think it’s okay if some things are “really easy” (as she says sometimes) because I know she’ll be humbled soon enough. Basically, I try not to worry too much or let my own ego get in the way of her learning. That said, today when her teacher told us how fluent she is in reading and how well she does in math, I couldn’t help but feel a little thrill. I do so love watching her grow. (Suzannah is still quite shy at these conferences; she really doesn’t love to be the center of attention, or at least at the center of conversations about her. So I tried not to embarrass her too much.)
And now the rest of the weekend is ours. Suzannah and I had a lovely mother-daughter day after her conference, mostly because she let me have a little nap before we did anything. (How wonderful it is to have a second-grader who can entertain herself while her tired mama steals a rest on the couch.) I took her to lunch, and then she sat in a salon chair next to me while I had my hair trimmed. We spent a good chunk of the afternoon at the library, where I worked on a poem for a workshop I’m taking and she worked on her reading log for school, and then she read and played a few games on one of the computers while I finished up my assignment and did a little reading of my own. We picked up Isaac a little early today, and back at home I changed into flannel pants and made popcorn for the three of us.
I love it. This life. These ordinary moments. Changing into pajama pants at 4:30 in the afternoon while my son changes into his (too-small, fraying, slightly dirty) Iron Man costume. Snacking on popcorn while I unload the dishwasher. Slicing sunchokes and layering them with purple kale and a bit of red onion in a casserole dish, covering it all with breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese and hoping it makes a decent dinner since I’ve never cooked this before. (It did. Matt and I topped our servings with fried eggs, slightly runny.) This is still my favorite time of year. The leaves are falling faster, now; yesterday morning a sudden storm tore them from the branches in swirls, and sidewalks are buried in damp red and yellow piles. Evening comes early. There is the sense of pulling inward, of hunkering down for the winter. I notice the lights in people’s houses as we drive by, the way they are framed against the dark of these November evenings. I hope our windows look like that from the outside -- warm, cozy, with just enough light to read by once we tuck our children into bed for the night.
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