of winter

The bigger Little Ones have created an island bed of sorts, sleeping bags hanging precariously from the arm of the couch, every pillow that we have pushed into this space on the family room floor.  Their own retreat has just the right blend of kid ingenuity and practical thought to make it mostly functional and the kids tuck themselves into it’s welcoming warmth.  It is a movie afternoon here, and this tuckaway is just the right spot to catch the show. We’ve been to the library; we’ve made the popcorn.  Now we’re ready to be enchanted by a visual story.   The Eldest remarked on our way to the library: “Mom, this is really special because we usually have movie days when it’s raining, but today it is sunny.”  What he didn’t notice was the deceit of the sun.  Though it is bright, the sharpness  of winter’s light  unfettered  by leaves on the trees, winter’s cold has built a wall around us.  Movie day, it is.

*

Grant has been asking lately, “Is this real?” and I’m not talking about  dragons or imaginary friends named Lacey.  He’s asking it when we’re driving to school, as he gazes out the window.  He’s asking it when we’re gathered around the table for dinner as he waits for me to finish cutting his carrots.  And I know just what he means.  Is this real?   I have a distinct memory, when I was about his age, feeling the same way.  I remember sitting in the car, watching the trees and the other cars, the shops and the traffic lights all pass us by.  But really we were moving past the scenery.  And I remember getting all twisted up in my head about what was real: was it myself in the car, seat belt on and singing along to Raffi?  Or was it the trees and the birds, the pavement and all that stuff outside?  What is real?  So I get what he means, and I’m sympathetic to my over-thinker, this dawning meta-awareness, and I know that he’ll never grow out of that.

*

The cold of this season has been bracing: the wind has pushed the wintry air into every crevice and crack of this house.  Each effort to leave the shored up warmth requires such work and yet, all it takes is a blown kiss from the north to reveal the open weave of the sweater I am wearing, the loose gap between my pant leg and sock.  By the end of the day the muscles in my back and neck are tense, my body hunched in on itself seeking inner warmth.  Maybe that’s why a fort of blankets and pillows looks so inviting.  I set the lid on the pot of chilli simmering on the stove and nestle my way into this movie retreat, too.  I feel my shoulders loosen, I let the little kid bodies mold around mine.  My cheeks flush with the moist warmth of breath, the child-like exhalations of rhythm.  This is real.

*

Later, when Griffin is awake, and I’ve pressed his cheeks into my heart so that he knows the beat of my love and I’ve smoothed back his hair, damp with nap-sweat, he’s loud and pointing to the family room, to his brother and sister, so we go.  We go, and we find the movie fort tweaked a bit, and now it has become a captain hook adventure and they are running on the coffee table (yes, this) and there is water and rescues and duels and Griffin gets right in on the action.   Just try to tell me that this isn’t real, folks.

The groundhog poked it’s head out this past weekend, yawned, blinked and stretched out, unimpressed with what he saw:  No shadow this year.  They say that means spring will come soon.

the story of outer space and the shake-shake bridge

“We’re on a ‘venture!” she declares, loudly and bravely.  He is a few paces behind her, and once he’s reached me he follows up with the necessary info: “We’re going to outer space, Mom. And this is our rocket ship,” he tells me, indicating the glider swing upon which he hoisting himself, just next to his sister.  The story builds over time. I’m told that he is the little white dot (“Do you see me?) and that once he has finally landed on the moon, after careful consideration he finds it slimy to walk.

Today was a brave sort of day, a day of saying “yes” and I suppose that when you say yes, something is bound to rise up to meet you.  Either that, or your just have the eyes to see it better.  Being brave today  meant being outside.  The sun has not been to visit in days, and when the thick fog finally lifted after this weekend, the clouds just filled the void.  It is overcast and chilly, in the way that I’ve come to count on from winter.  It’s the kind of sky that dares you, almost, to come outside: “See if you can find some goodness here!” it taunts.  So being brave today means confronting that ominous gray and being in it’s space.

Boots, hats, jackets, and mittens that won’t stay on, times four, and I remember why this takes guts.  But the discouragement from getting it all together dissipates quickly with the first sharp breaths of cold air.  The familiar sting on the cheeks and the tightness in the chest only last a few minutes, and while I let the weight of the cold settle over me I watch the transformation in all of us. There’s something about getting outside, being in that open expanse of air and sky and earth never-ending that invites the imagination to mimic the landscape.  Though their play was entertaining in the comfortable confines of our family room, the Little Ones become more animated, their bodies reaching to explore the negative space of our backyard.

The adventure continued, and the Eldest described a new path: “Now, we’re on the shake-shake bridge” he narrated for my benefit, feet planted firmly on the glider swing, his arms creating waves of movement from the ropes downward. (You know, the shake-shake bridge, at the playground – with all the planks tied to each other, and it shakes and wobbles as you cross from one end to the other. The shake-shake bridge).

It’s days like today that set me straight.  The literal happenings, the actual doings are nothing particularly spectacular, nothing terribly out of the ordinary.  We were brave at times, yes, and had our ‘venture. Stepping out of the rocket ship, I wonder, what is the moon like?   Is it full of waking, and sleeping, but mostly waking and sorting it all out?  Is the adventure of moon walking about how to walk out love even when it’s “slimy” and you feel like you’re slipping, or getting stuck?  What sort of creatures are on the moon?  Are they friendly? Are we friendly?

And then there’s the shake-shake bridge.  Here’s the thing about the shake-shake bridge: it can be thrilling and terrifying all at the same time.  It shakes one way, then wobbles the other.  Your step is uncertain, and you overcompensate a bit with the next.  But you are never in danger.  The bridge isn’t going anywhere: it’s all part of the game.  And sometimes that’s just how it is – I get lost in the game, fearful of the unbalance, forgetting that I’m safe and secure the whole time.  The fun is in the twist and the wobble.

For all the running and jumping and swinging and sliding, for all the moon walking and rocketship-ing, it’s the story of being brave, and saying yes.  For all the ball throwing, and stick hunting, for all the mud stomping and dragon growling, it’s the story of freedom and fresh air.  It’s learning how to create a story worth living.  Today it’s the story of me, here on earth, pushing the Littlest in the swing with the rhythmic sway of gravity and the tides, watching that little white dot land on the moon.

my very own once upon a time

I stood over the sink, my hands raw and red, burning from the the hot water.  Bits of pasta, small pieces of green beans, and leftover coffee grounds collected in the bottom of the basin. I hummed a sing-songy nothing to myself, making music alongside the gurgling water.  The kids were all tucked in for the night, and I was pretending not to hear their going-to-bed-noises.  Instead, while I leaned my hip against the wet edge of the counter, and dumped the water of the pot, I went over the day in my head, pouring out each event like that water, and conjuring up the story of the day.

For the past two years I’ve picked a word for the year.  I’ve used this word like a rudder, to steer myself, or like a map, to help me determine my course.  I’ve used it like a mantra to help me stay focused and like a lens through which I see the minutiae of my life.  I’ve learned the consistent pace of my own self when I chose breathe.  I’ve learned about how my cracks only make space for Glory to shine through when I chose enough.  This year my One Word is Story.

There is story all around me, if I can just hear it – the old t-shirt that I sleep in tells a chapter and verse of the story of us, for instance.  Or there are stories, worn smooth, rubbed down with each telling that the words now are more like family folklore than an actual recount of events.

In choosing “story” I’m choosing to focus on not just the events of the day, the many things that happen and check lists that are accomplished (or not) from sunrise to sunset, but instead to see the narrative that holds these things.  A story has themes.  A story develops characters.  Lessons can be learned, right and wrong meted out, justice served.   Beauty is writ out of the work of living.  Stories are meant to entertain.  We each have our own “once upon a time.” What is mothering if not the moment-to-moment development of character (the little ones’ and mine)?  And isn’t it my work too to see the beauty in the work of life?  Goodness knows, there is plenty of entertainment in my days!

In her book Storycatcher, Christina Baldwin writes “Story is the narrative thread of our experience — not what literally happens, but what we make out of what happens, what we tell each other and what we remember.”  Every day my story is written, but not in the literal happening of my life, but in how I see it, recall it, tell it, remember it.  This year, I want watch my story unfold, not just within the narrative of my life, or even the larger story that is family history.  I want to watch my story be braided into the tapestry of the Big Story, too.  Sometimes that’s not easy, because it often can look like the underside of that tapestry – the rough, tangled mess of dull knots.  I want to learn to turn those tangled knots over and see the other side, to make meaning out of folding the laundry and putting the dishes away.  Our story is woven, strand by strand.  It is the warp of bath time and wooden block towers,  the weft of singing together in the car on the way to school and running trucks after dinner.  Alone, these things threaten to be trivial and mundane, but when seen as part of a bigger story, they serve the purpose of adding color, and texture; they advance the plot, they get us invested.

I am writing story.  I am being written into story.  As I come to see my life in the scope of the Big Story, too, I can watch the work of the One who holds my story.  I can hear of His grace at work, I can see His gentle touch of guidance.  This year I want to see each misstep, each adventure, each heart swell, each struggle as tale to be told.  I want to hold the stories of my family’s past, to pass them along down the line, add ours to the fabric of folklore.  I want to be the one they all come to and say “Tell me a story, Mom.”  I want to always be ready with a story.

On the podcast, The Moth, as they sign off they exhort their listener to “have a story-worthy week.”  I’m going to spend the next year with story on my lips, story in my heart.  I’m going to have story in my steps, and story in my eyes.  I’m going to be the one saying “well, that’ll make a great story some day.”

Today’s story was one of turning siblings into friends, and, still standing over the sink, I’m pressed with the image of all three of the Little Ones chasing after each other, trucks in hand. I finish up the dishes, sat the last pot to dry, and wring my hands through the dish towel.  Mark had come to the kitchen now, and we were  finishing up the nightly dance of setting our house right again after the undoing of the day.  The quiet had settled in over the house, not thick but gauzy, and my mind turned over the day once again, listening for the story told.

 

one trip around the sun

It sure feels like we do a lot of celebrating around here.  And it’s easy for one celebration to bleed into the next, and to get all celebrated-out and forget even what we’re doing.  But, whoa, tomorrow is a whole ‘nother thing.

Tomorrow, dear Littlest little one, is the day we celebrate you. You probably didn’t even know that such a thing existed, but only that you’re swept up into the latest pile of goodness, and yes, that’s true, too.  But there is day marked out just for you.  This birthday of yours, this January 9th, is all for you.  One whole trip around this sun.  You’ll have had all your first days, now, and you’ll just start to accumulate more.  It’ll be your second first day of spring, then, and you’re second Thanksgiving.  Then comes thirds and fourths and you have your whole life full of days to look forward to.

Oh Littlest – you have never seemed little!  Oh, yes, you are my peanut, smaller than even your brother was, but I laugh, because I know the secret inside that smallness: “Though [s]he be but little, [s]he is fierce!” (You see, this is my secret, too).  And I see that fierceness, every day, as you refuse to sit back and watch your brother and sister carry on without you.  You were my earliest one to crawl; earliest to walk.  And that walk didn’t take long to turn into a run – for months, now, you’ve had me scrambling faster to try to stay one step ahead of you, though I am barely successful.  Faithfully observant, you never let an opportunity pass: if I have forgotten to pull up the dog’s water bowl, I know it within seconds because you’ve upended the whole thing and are blissfully splashing in your puddled creation. And if it’s not the dog bowl, it’s the trash can. If not the trash can, the CD player.  It’s always something with you, kid.  You’ve tested the sharpness of my reflexes far more times than those other two.

You’ve been running trucks with the big kids now, hands gripping the edges of the yellow plastic Tonka, body bent over your vehicle, “vrrrmmm, vrmmm-ing” as you hustle to catch up.  Sometimes you stop, mid-stride, to clap for yourself.  Often I’ve thought to ask for your birth certificate, pretty sure that you’re pulling one over on me here, seeming more aged than I remember. But I was there, oh-yes-very-much-so-there, at your birth. Still, I have a hard time understanding it all – this compact little body, so capable; this little mind, understanding of so much.

But you are the littlest of three and though sometimes it’s easy for us to sweep you up into the fury of this family and expect you to fall into place, I know that there is so much glory that you see.  There is so much life happening all around you.  It’s all you can do not to just throw your legs over the rungs of your crib and shimmy down (if you could, though I wouldn’t put it past you), turn up the volume and start dancing like a fool, not to be left out of any family-style dance party.  That, or find your seat at the table, grab a few crayons and became your own Picasso.  Or play football, to throw your body on top of that pigskin that is bigger than you.  You refuse to be left out (even when the Middlest is determined to put boundaries on your play, yelling “No!” in you face).

Though you command us to pay attention to you,  it’s not in any attention-grabbing way.  You are not there to steal the spotlight, no.  It’s actually the opposite: you are content to just march on, find your place in line, watching long enough to figure out the beat, and once you’re confident you’ve found the rhythm you just jump on in, never allowing the jump rope to tangle, or the song to stop.

It’s these moments of family rhythm when I am so glad – so glad - that we are a family of five.  Though I’m not ever sure that I will feel, as some claim to, that our family is complete, I know for certain that it was not before you came.  I was so nervous to add to what we had before you, so worried to upend any delicate balance that I thought we’d achieved.   But I just didn’t know.  I didn’t know the joy; I didn’t know that fullness.  I didn’t know that families are not scales to be made still, striving for perfect balance.  I made it about me, somehow, but it isn’t.  It never was.  It’s about you.  And I’m so glad that I’m getting to know you.

It is always with a sense of sadness that I take in the breathless wonder of my babe’s first birthday, and yours is no different.  I am proud of us, proud of you for doing all the hard work of growing this first year.  But there is no turning back the clock.  Those precious firsts are now memories, snapshots of photographs, a mix of sound bites and hazy impressions to be called upon later.  I’ve had a glimpse of the good that is to come; I’ve seen it already with your brother and sister, and I know you’ll have your own shade of this.  But I also know that you’ll never be so small again as to fit tucked in to the crook of my arm.  Babies don’t keep.

As we, you, throw ourselves into the centrifugal force of turning the curve of a year, I wonder how you will show me more of you.  What kind of toddler will you be (for I know for certain that you are baby no longer)?  Inquisitive and non-stop, I’m sure, but will you settle into moments of quiet, too?  Will you learn to grab a book and back yourself into my lap like you’ve seen the big kids do?  Will you be a chatter box, your mouth simply the overflow of the work of your brain? Or will you keep that noise to yourself, turning the sounds over in your head until you are ready to share with us?  Will you be an adventurous eater, tasting everything set before you? Or will you cultivate a sophistication, a palate of your choosing?  I don’t doubt you’ll keep that sense of humor, that laugh that bursts forth in a contagious explosion, mostly directed at your brother and sister. And some how, some where I know that eventually (eventually!) you’ll sleep a full night.  I do not worry with you the way I did when I was new at this.  You have that, dear Littlest: this is not my first rodeo, and you benefit from my experience.

Oh, Littlest, you were laughed in to this world (I’m certain that I broke my waters  because of a night of deep belly laughs at dinner with far-flung family).  Let’s keep on laughing together, okay?

Happy first birthday, little man.

5 – and then some

Your fifth birthday was not unlike the day of your birth five years ago.

Five years ago, as the contractions came with the momentum of a runaway train, I puked.  This year, it was your stomach revolting.  You were brave, but really, it is a terrible way to spend a birthday.

That night, when you arrived in the quiet intensity of a cold December labor, I didn’t sleep a wink.  That one day stood still in time, breath upon breath adding up to make a day that seemed endless and holy.  The days that followed were hardly days but a series of naps and nursings.  In fact, the whole month of December came and went, and somewhere in there was Advent, with it’s waiting, and Christmas, with it it’s celebrating, but we were still high on the smell of new flesh and fresh love.

The eve of your fifth birthday was sleepless, too.  But without the hormonal charge to keep my eyes wide open, and now with  two other children to care for, the fall-out from this sleeplessness felt more like falling on concrete and less like  rolling topsy turvy through clouds.

Your due date was scheduled for December 1st, and we did what everyone had suggested that we do: make plans.  We never expected to see you on this day and so we were going to get our Christmas tree, busy ourselves with a different kind of waiting.  But you were punctual, to a T, and instead of a tree, we brought you home instead.  And this day, five years later?  That was part of our plan, too, for the day. One of things to do on your birthday was to show the Littlest how we go to the farm and stick our noses in these evergreens until we find one to take home with us.  We should’ve known better.  Our traditions are often fuzzy in the making, and this one is no different.  Your body was still recovering from your long night of sickness, so instead we stayed home in pajamas, sipping ginger ale.  Five years ago, the month of December marched on but that tree never appeared, subsumed as it was by that first month of your baby life. This year, though, we adjusted plans.  A few days later than planned, but we now have a tree – though it may be unadorned for an untold time, and we see the glory in it’s plainness.

There are other themes that string the distance of five years: the awesomeness of the human body – strength and resilience beyond  my mind’s capability to comprehend, whether in sickness and recovery or the hard work of bringing a baby to life in this world.  And yet within that strength, the particular delicateness of it, too – how intricate this system is, how just-right everything needs to be.

As your birthday drew to a close, you began feeling better.  Mark and I decided to at least give you your gift.  Of course you were happy to see your new bike, but your body was still so tired, all of your reserve having been spent, that you could do little more than sit on the seat and play with the handlebars.   The next day, once your body was done reworking itself, you were ready to celebrate your birthday properly. You wanted to take your bike out for a spin, then be with those who love you, a circle bigger than just this family of five.  Only by then, you were watching the rest of us, one by one, fall to the same sickness that had just prevailed in your body.  Instead of lifting our glasses and our voices to celebrate you, we each hovered through the worst until we landed days later out the other side.  We cancelled plans. In some ways, it feels as though this milestone has skittered in without a blink of notice.

It has been a terrible birthday, really.  You are now a whole hand – all four fingers and a thumb.  There is much to recognize, so much to notice of who you are becoming.  Yet, this milestone has barely been noted, let alone lauded and honored.  Your birth five years ago was life-changing for me in the very deepest sense of the phrase, and every minute since I’ve been catching up to you, dear Eldest.  I have not missed a single moment of it, I have not been absent from a breath of your being.  Each word that you learn to read, each drawing that you create, more detailed than the last.  Each worry that you’ve confided, each nonsensical sentence that bursts from your mouth in moments of silly.  Each skinned knee, each try, and try, and try again.  I’ve held these moments, for you, with you.  I’ve turned them around in my hands, felt them on all sides.  You are five, now, and then some.

Hear me now: we will celebrate you, taking you out to dinner, as you’ve requested.  We will light candles and sing to you.  And one by one, we will gather with those who love you.   Just like the December five years ago, this one will stretch out with time only lightly glancing off of these harsh boundaries.

Happy fifth birthday, Grant.