What Does That Spell? Awesome

Yesterday Tessa asked me to read her some of my magazine The New Yorker. I made sure to pick out a bit of an article interesting enough to capture her attention for a moment but without any scary references. She kept saying, "These things actually happened?! For real?! They're actually happening?!" I was bursting with pride at her interest. Not actually in the words I was reading or the subject itself (an experiment in reversing a writer's typical formula) but in the idea of non-fiction itself. Here is a historian, I thought. A real journalist. A note-taker of life. She watches the world and us all. Comes up with her own analysis in her own time and presents it without bias (sometimes). She surprises me always. She's dying to learn how to spell everything. She can not see a word without wanting to shout it out letter by letter, ask what it is, what it means. She put magnetic letters together on the fridge yesterday carefully but without really forming words and read me a whole paragraph about responsibility. I love her craving for learning. She cheerleads her own name incessantly, "Give me a T! E! S! S! A! What does that spell?!" Sometimes too incessantly during a three hour car ride. But we find other words to chant. Other sounds to practice. I'm learning how to teach her to read which is incredible. Something I always wondered about. Her spongey brain sucking information out of the air, filing it deep inside. Using it to spit out, "my pleasure" after being thanked for a kind deed. She's still unsure of any kind of bad guys. While reading her strange old fairy tales I omit parts about people or even ogres getting hurt. They cast spells and ward eachother off with magic sand rather than swords. She's certain aliens haven't visited earth and if you start to talk about anything unpleasant she asks you to please not give her nightmares.

Of course, she's a huff-bucket lately too. This new found brain of hers swells and gives her some bad ideas as well. Like the readiness to debate me or Jason at every turn. A politician? No way! She'll always say she wants to be an animal rescuer when she grows up, she even has her own anthem already "I'm strong! I'm brave! I'm wise!" Yes she is.

Stop, Drop and Breathe

I'm trying to let my sense of time go and forget the worry of coldness and dark. Maybe it's the change of the season. The descending darkness making everything seem more rushed. The approaching holidays and the excitement (and secret horror) of the preparations they'll entail. But these days I've tried to keep from planning out my days beginning to end. I've been pushing my list oriented mind in an uncomfortable direction. One of simplicity in the moment. Without too many chores, errands, non-sensical wastes of time spent driving here and there to pick up essentially nothing. I've been trying to watch my babies grow. To see them. To look into Thatcher's sleeping face and his wide awake eyes, to know him better. To ask Tessa real questions and really listen to her answers. To follow them into the field, down the path, towards the woods. Yesterday they kept running, they didn't look back. I felt such pride that they knew I'd be there. Their sense of fearlessness is something I cherish and their intimate relationship with nature is priceless. Their screaming excitement over finding the last of the ice in the field, a cricket, a gift of a flower gone by. They don't know how much time they have left to their days, in their moments of play. I want to be here now like they are. I want to lie in the field with my family and let the seasons pass however they will. I want to be the field mouse who doesn't scurry.

Quotable Cute-tations

Just some Tessa quotes from the summer that I've been meaning to write down....

"Jelly sandwiches fill my belly with joy!"

"That cloud looks like a tea pot. Wait! Now it's a monkey!... with a horn!... and he's hitch hiking!"

"Why doesn't everyone have the same mama?"

First Days, First Floods

Today I escorted my big girl, blondie-locks to her first day of school at our local elementary. She seemed so carefree until it was time for me to leave and she broke down. There were tears and shaky hugs and it wasn't just one sided. My mama bear instincts were kicking and screaming saying "wait! no! not yet! it's too soon! it's a slippery slope! she'll grow up now! don't let her!" But of course I had to. And three hours later I was the very first parent there and she came smiling into my arms. The rest of the day was filled with stories and popsicles and walks in the woods. Life as we knew it will be interupted five days a week with a half silence but we'll work it out. Minnow doesn't know what to make of this space. For a while after she left he just ran circles yelling until he was too tired and crashed out for his morning nap.
Of course this whole world here is not so normal anyhow. Just two weeks after the worst natural disaster to hit Vermont in nearly a century our poor little state is still reeling. Hurricane Irene had a grudge with the Green Mountain state apparently and left her ravaged, flooded, roads and bridges crumbled, houses swept away in moments, lives taken, historic building gone forever. It's been a tough couple of weeks to try and figure out what to do for our most badly hurt neighbors. Our little town of Wardsboro and our neighbor Jamaica lost over a dozen homes together. Our once quiet back road to Jamaica has become the only real access to our town with National Gaurd humvees and disaster relief vehicles racing past every hour. Our neighbors at least have access and electricity but the roads are barely better than river beds. On the other hand spirits are bright. The whole state has put in so much effort to help. Neighbors taking in neighbors, strangers a month ago are friends now. Everyone is doing what they can. There are towns where people are hiking in and out for miles to get to work and school, to go grocery shopping. Church groups and businesses are setting up tents of free food, there are "free" stores for anyone in need, postings for free lodgings at farms and vacation homes. Our local food shelf had to turn donations away!
So although I was concerned that Tessa's first day might be a bit more frightening for the screaming army trucks and the sight of the house across from her school still half falling into the river I'm hopeful that like the rest of us she's resilient and this radiant kindness that is enveloping our state and our lives warms and protects her from even the strangest, most unpredictable happenings. I'm confident this will resonate in her and Minnow in years to come and help them develop into the kind of hardy, caring and compassionate people this state seems to produce so well.

Eden

It's too late to be writing this. Too late to be getting home from work and not going immediately to sleep. I will regret this in the morning, absolutely. But with a grainy bright gray projection on the screen of our monitor showing that rambunctious boy sleeping soundly still I have to take this moment in. It's after midnight, my God. I've thought each day of logging an entry and have failed. These kids are reeking havoc on ability to have a personal moment of reflection. But what do I do with that moment? I reflect on them. What do I do when I go to work? When I finally, after days and days, get out of the house? I talk about them. Every single chance I get. I'll leap through that door if you open it. Have a kid? Oh yeah! Me too! Two wonderfully quirky, weird, inquisitive kids that light up my life like the fourth of July. Seriously, as exhausted as I am lately I've been having such a wonderful time with them. Today, for example, we walked in the rain. Tessa found an orange salamander and vowed to keep it safe forever. Till she let it go in our garden. Thatcher let me know when it was time for a nap by pointing to the bed. We all got in a nap together. I couldn't sleep (for a while at least). Lying there in a perfect lovey baby sandwich. Cuddling, breathing, living. My mantra lately is "live". Just live life the way it's supposed to be lived. Lightly and with love. I want to stop carrying around guilt and exhaustion and irritability. Anger of any kind is useless (my dad used to say). Don't worry, be happy. Cliche yes, but oh so right. Tomorrow (today I guess) we'll play in puddles, catch salamanders, eat whatevers in the house and nap. Sounds like Eden.

Amen

I don't even know my name. I know my role and that is a happy, happy place to be. I know where the blackberries grow wild hidden in our yard, how to get my boy to give me a big, wide, growling kiss, how to get my girl to laugh and trust me to hold her head above water. Who knew I would know these things like my own heart? Who knew my life would be so full of wonder and beauty. Of simple, perfect moments. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I just wanna bang on my drum all day...