Taking out the trash

When your son's first retainer lasts all of a day and a half until it is thrown out on his lunch tray that first day back to school after the hurricane, you have the sudden realization that there is very little in this life you actually control.  Very little.  At least I'm the one making the morning coffee.  I do have that.

{case in point: for those of you having trouble leaving comments, I've disabled the comment moderation piece. let's hope the Chinese sex-trafficking website comments continue to go to my spam box. if they don't, please disregard}

What makes it better

Sometimes two really is better than one.

Two families blended means kids can entertain themselves for hours and days on end,

especially if you let them make their own "fishing rods" from recently cut bamboo, twine, strange metal antennae and randomly found curtain rods. (oh my)

Surfboards from 1965 are timeless,


and in constant motion, better when used by two.


Two rods, twice the fish,


and rolling out onto the dock in pajamas before breakfast, well, it's certainly a luxury.

But none of it would happen without the generosity of friends, and the ability to slip into step beside one another, working together to make life just a little bit (or maybe alot) more interesting.

What it feels like

I'm sitting on his bed, waiting for him to fall asleep. Waiting out the fever. Wishing he was up, running around, but instead he's missing the baseball camp he's waited for all summer.

I never knew before having kids how bad I would feel, when they feel bad. Or how good I'd feel when they round 3rd heading for home.

If I could only bottle up the pang inside and let him drink it, the one that wants so badly for him to feel good, I don't think he'd ever be sick again. If only.

Getting it right

I used to think I had to do everything right. Exactly right. No mistakes, no half-way, no sort-of, mediocre or almost. It applied to everything. Grades, housework, raising children, running a business, taking pictures, knitting, being a wife, work, everything. Well, actually I guess I still think that way, but it has taken having children to get me to lighten up a little. (thank goodness)

Case in point: trying to take their picture. The recently toothless, the tan, with dirty black feet, all three. It's a lesson in futility.

At least it was last night while waiting for the fireworks display, which was great, by the way, and even impressive for this small town. And as I sat and watched the lights and listened to the booms and looked at the awed expressions on my children's faces, I have to admit I wondered how there was still money (in this small town) for fireworks when every other budget seems to be getting slashed to the core. Specifically the schools but heck, even the dump is now closed one day a week and there hasn't been an animal at the animal shelter in years, I guess they leave that responsibility up to the private groups.

When I let my mind wander to all these things I usually end up thinking I don't know what's right anymore. Or maybe it's just that there isn't only one right. Maybe fireworks have something that's intangible that we still need. Maybe they're the reminder that life goes on even when times are hard, that there is still a community that can come together for celebration, for children (mine) running themselves silly playing tag and hide-and-seek and ending up in a giggling pile all over themselves on a blanket spread out on the Fourth of July.

Maybe they help us remember that all of life is important, especially from the viewpoint of a child. I know that in years to come my children won't look back and remember the shady dealings of politicians and public figures, but I know they'll have dreamy recollections of hot summer nights, barefoot in the crispy grass during a July drought catching fireflies and watching fireworks. At least that's what I remember.

Going, going, gone

Life has officially hit warp speed. The fifteen year reunion of my PT class this past weekend was a clear reminder. Fifteen years, I can hardly believe it and I wonder where I've been. You laugh but it crosses my mind. Where was I when the younger me crossed the stage and snatched the diploma vowing never, ever to go to school again, ever?

Where was I when marriage swept me away, when we renovated one, then a second house and had three kids all right in a row? Am I really that same girl who worked here and there and then took a break for 9 years so I could manage the kid circus that life had become?

"Time will fly" we've heard a thousand times from a thousand people who have gone before us. We learn from them that we'll blink and our kids will be grown and married and before we know it we'll be grandparents and we can hardly believe they're right when we're in the middle of diapers and pregnant bellies and exhaustion and sleepless nights.

I don't know if they're right because I'm not that quite far along yet, but what I think at this point is that there must be a part of us that is timeless. We hold all the information as if it just happened yesterday but the circumstances that we find ourselves in and pictures that fill our keepsake boxes remind us otherwise.

Our children who once crawled are now swimming, doing multiplication, reading long books and winning art awards. They play songs on the piano and write diaries, develop strong friendships and suffer sometimes too. And each year that my son hits baseballs farther than the last I mark the passage of time, knowing that one day they will sail over the fence in the outfield. When they do we will cheer and shine, knowing that the goal was achieved and that while he runs the bases and touches home, that he is well on his way, away.

Speaking of flowers

I took the girls to the hospital with me tonight to listen to a presentation while the boys went to baseball practice. It was better this way, really, I'd be able to get them home at a decent time and showered and ready for bed before they turned into pumpkins or over-tired, fighting, spaghetti noodles. The only obstacle would be keeping them occupied, distracted and above all else quiet for over an hour. Sounds simple until you have children and then you instantly know all the pitfalls and many unimaginable ones that can occur in such a scenario.

It was officially medical, complete with a power point presentation, a doctor speaking, tons of medical terminology, medical professionals in attendance, the whole nine yards, all of us learning or re-learning about the pitfalls of bone growing in unexpected and unwanted places in the body after certain traumas and what to do about it. Yeah, I really deal with this stuff.

And just when you think that what you do is important (because it is), reality hits. I looked over and my youngest was about to whack my middle child in the head with the yo-yo she'd brought. A few minutes later I had to get her to turn down the Jackson Five's "ABC" on her ipod and stop her from wriggling to the beat. Then there was a big debate over dessert, who would get it and when and what it would be. Shoes, sweaters, bags, books, papers and bodies were strewn about on the floor and just then my youngest handed me a piece of paper.

She had drawn a flower. Very basic. There was writing at the top, complete with a few backwards "A's" and a number or two. It said:

1. I like the flower.
2. I am the flower.
3. The flower ran away.
4. The End.

There it is in a nutshell. The complex and precarious situation of what it means to be a mother with her brain in so many places all at once. Wanting to be in all of them, not wanting to neglect any of them, but having to stop and chuckle about the basic reality and simple truth that is offered to us by our children. If I were her, I'd have wanted to turn into a flower and run away too. I'm sure of it.

Off the hook

I often wonder just what my kids will remember from their childhoods. They already remember so much more than I think they do or think they should and from a much younger age. But where things like the 7 years carting 3 overlapping children back and forth from preschool made quite the indelible impression in my mind, I find that my kids hardly remember those days. It makes me wonder if our focus was at times misplaced.

But it's these lazy afternoons in the middle of the week when Daddy takes the afternoon off, takes them fishing and they catch us a fresh fish dinner from a nearby pond that I know they will remember for some time to come.

He has their full attention. They learn how to bait a hook, cast a line and how to hold a wriggling, wet, slimy fish and even take it off the hook.

They recount these experiences to anyone who will listen, including their entire classes respectively. But preschool is nothing more than a fading memory, or something like a dream where they're not really sure if it happened at all.

Just right

It was one of those days where I knew at the end a walk around with my camera would do me some good. I won't run down the list for you of what my day entailed up until that point because we are all busy and I'm sure you don't need my stress on top of your own.

We are all moving from the minute our feet hit the floor until we park ourselves at the end of each and every very long day. At least most of the people I know live this way and it's up to us to self-impose some time-outs.

Sometimes I walk around imagining myself as a 99 year old woman, looking back, telling a story to someone, anyone who will listen.

"That was when we lived in an old farmhouse," I'd say, "we gutted it from top to bottom, kept it from falling to the ground, built it back up strong and new. We had three kids there and added on and vowed to care for what we were given. After all, we knew it wasn't really, only, ours."

The green looks more green when I daydream,

the barn changes every time I see it,

the kids do what they naturally do,







and I know it won't last forever. But I try on these walks to soak in every last bit of it. To make it part of me, to make memories instead of flying by life so fast and calling myself productive.

So I save the lilacs and plant more peonies. I spread lilies around the outskirts and know that they'll root themselves. I give the iris their room and replant them as well, knowing that old Mrs. Webster probably planted the original ones well before I was born. There is history here. I can feel it. It reminds me and humbles me when I know that this life isn't all about me. I like that.

Snoverload

After three days of excitement, injuries, and that worn-out-to-the-bone feeling that comes from playing as hard as one possibly can, some curious things have taken shape. Caution has come into play, with the littlest ones looking on, wondering sometimes if it's really worth it.

The scrapes,

the long, tiring trek back up the slope and the unknown of the next ride.

But on they go,

overcoming fear, embracing the freedom,

finding the silliness,

however they can,

tempting even the oldest ones in the group who recover the slowest and feel it the most (that's me at the bottom of that big hill up there).

It's well worth the slide, even without a sled,

and the walk back up, because this doesn't happen every winter here. It may not snow like this again until they're adults if history tells us anything.

So we gather it all in, this precious time. With the memories, the bruises, the aches and scrapes, reminders all that we are here, and that life is good, and full and wide open.

Make my day

I usually take away from work more than I expect to receive. Such was the case the other day when after just meeting a man and starting to work together I knew it would be a special hour. The man happens to be blind.

patient: "How many children do you have?"

me: "How do you know I have kids?"

patient: "I can tell you're a mother. I knew it right away."

me: "I take that as a compliment, you know."

patient: "I meant it as one."

me: "Thank you. *gush* Well, I have three, there's......


So, I send yet another happy birthday wish to the man without whom we wouldn't have our amazing, perfect three.

17

Seventeen degrees means different things for different people. For the dog it means bringing me her Kong trying to get me to play fetch. For my husband it means leaving before dawn to go fishing (yikes!). For me it means trying out the new office for indoor photo shoots like the picture above. Oh yes, this is going to be the perfect spot.

But for the kids and the cat it means they'll hole up by the fire for some electronics and I can't say I blame them.

In the meantime, I'll try knitting another of those little hats above, this time as a gift. I'm using a borrowed pattern from the women over at the purl bee. If you aren't a regular to their blog, I highly recommend becoming one, after all, this is the perfect knitting day.