Jump-starting my imagination

E: Mommy, I have some eggs benedict for you.
(Shows me a plate full of coins.)
Me: Where did that money come from?
E: It's not money, it's eggs benedict.
Me: Well, then, where did the eggs benedict come from?
E: I just made it.
Me: But where did the ingredients come from?
E: I got them at Ikea.

Oh. Guess it's time to eat some eggs benedict.

Riding the Rapids of Life

Time keeps flowing no matter how I wish for a respite.
I don't write.
I am scattered.
At times I struggle for breath.

I am overwhelmed by a torrent of activities and fundraisers.
Elementary school, preschool, temple, sunday school, art classes, cub scouts, field trips.
Drop offs and pick ups. Never-ending plains of dishes. Mountains of laundry.
The water level rises.

Currents and eddies pull me this way and that. Occasionally I find some respite.

Little things matter. For R, my sensitive one, a host of worries accompany the first loose tooth:
First, "Mommy, I think we should go to the dentist. My tooth hurts. I bit a popsicle stick." Once we explained that he's probably just losing his first baby tooth. "Mommy, I don't think I should eat anything hard until my baby tooth falls out and my new tooth comes in." And tonight, "Mommy, tomorrow, let's google the tooth fairy, to see if she will take a note if I swallow my tooth and still give me a prize."

My dreamer, E, assured me he wanted to go to preschool "all the days as I can". Now that he is enrolled four days a week, I think he misses leisurely mornings with mommy as much as I do. We make up for lost time in the afternoon. "Mommy, this is a magic broomstick that will take us to Mars. Oh - we forgot the map. [pushes imaginary button on wall] Here it is! Now we can go to Mars." And later, "Mommy, let's pretend we're ladybugs and we're climbing up the stems to get the aphids. Now I'm a ladybug with a kitchen. What would you like to eat? I have aphid chicken soup for you. And some ice cream."

Now 9 months old, V is a beautiful, exhausting whirlwind of ups and downs.
He enchants me with his squeals of delight. He calls for mama when is tired or hungry, and melts my heart. He impresses me with his cleverness by heading straight for the cat food when he wants to be picked up. He tosses food on the floor when it's not to his liking - only to change is mind and eat it from the floor before I get to cleaning it up. His top two front teeth have finally broken through, after weeks of teething pain and accompanying sleepless nights. Still, on few nights I get to sleep through until 5 or 6, I wake up startled and worried that I haven't heard from him yet. All too soon, I'm sure, I'll miss his morning snuggles.

I feel battered physically & emotionally from life's ride these past few months. I still want to finish unpacking, organize, start making little repairs and improvements we've imagined - but I find it impossible to make any headway in the midst of the bedlam created by our beautiful boys. I need to take care of my health but it always takes a backseat to my babies. I don't work, and yet I still struggle for balance.

Milestones pass in the blink of an eye. The current is swift. I often find it hard to sit back and enjoy the ride, but it is always well worth it when I do.

Progress

We decided that we've had enough of trying to coerce E. to go use the potty when he evidently needs to, or might need to, only to have no success, followed by a dirty diaper 5 minutes later. So, we decided, it's time to put the whole process in his hands. If he asks, we'll change him, or go with him to the bathroom. Today ... he wore the same sopping wet diaper from the time he woke up, through the morning when it became dirty, and into the afternoon. Finally, at nap time (which we have re-instituted, as it is difficult to get to bed on time with the late summer light), he asked for a change. Progress!

At my stained glass class tonight, I continued working on building a lampshade. I cut 32 usable pieces tonight. Progress!

I pushed enough piles and boxes out of the middle of the living room that I could vacuum. I even vacuumed the hairy stairs. Progress!

R. had his first day of summer school - he's taking phys. ed. Summer school gym class is much cheaper than camp ... and we are *finally* getting him out to interact with his peers. Progress!

We'll take it day by day.

Loving life

Lazy days, thunderstorms, roses and more mysterious flowers blooming in our overgrown flower bed. One yellow iris feebly pokes its head out from among the mass of not-yet-blooming suspected daylillies.

Visiting family, boys playing with relatives, Grandpa seems unchanging, but Grandma looks old. Too much birthday cake but that's what parties are for. Tornado sirens intermittently throughout the afternoon, thankfully disappointed by seeing none.

Neighborhood walk and bike ride with mom, nice to have help getting out of the house, pass by future school, stop at toy store for rewards to be earned by good behavior, first visit to large indie coffee shop for small selection of sandwiches with our drinks. Exasperated when he decides to be king, blocking shop doors and insisting that each walks where he demands, pushing and hitting when he doesn't get his way. Exasperated again later when he has a dirty diaper moments after leaving the potty without any success. Boys run out of energy, briefly, for a few moments, until batteries seem magically recharged.

Come home and smell the roses, listen to baby coos, preschool giggles, and big-kid logic. Goodnight, mom; we'll see you tomorrow. Late goodnight to all. Life is good.

Summer

Pulling firm teeth or
leaving the house with three boys,
both are difficult.

Outside sticky heat
rolls off in bright beads of sweat,
can't shake off the air.

Green fields fill my view
in varied hues of lawns, trees
bushes and hillsides.

Boys melt in the heat
but won't exchange favorite
cold weather clothing.

Dark skies ominous
to travelling minivan;
thunder, lightening.

Ozone-laden air
suddenly hammers the roof
and floods the roadways.

A haiku artist
I am not -writing briefly
today nonetheless.

Good to be alive -
lazy days inside and out
leave judgement behind.

Four months old

You have one wild hair at the front of your head, three or more times longer than the rest, and curly. It is difficult to catch on camera, but then you much prefer to look at my face than the camera lens. When you do gaze at me, you frequently have your head cocked slightly to your right. Is it because I always carry you with my left arm?

My dilemma at the moment is whether to write a few words about these moments I won't remember except as happiness, or to enjoy your happy, alert presence while daddy has taken R & E out to run errands. You don't much like looking at the computer screen either, and my typing, as well as our play, is hampered by holding you in one hand.

There aren't currently many other options, as you are also no longer content to sit in your bouncy seat for more than a few minutes at a time. When I try to leave you in the bouncer or on your baby gym, you purposefully grasp whatever you can reach - a toy, a blanket, a burp cloth - and shove it as far as you can into your mouth. When you find that it doesn't satisfy you, you tug at the strings that move me with your tears and your little pout.

Yes, you like to play and so play we shall. You push up with your legs, so that you can stand on my lap, and then fold back down to sitting. You usually tire of this game long after mommy feels the need to do something else, or your brothers demand it. Now, while they are gone, let us play.

Finished after *all* the boys are in bed.

Looking up

Good things also happened this week.

The maple trees have leafed out and while our lilac is not the color I imagined, it is still delightfully fragrant.






We finally made it to the craft store on Monday, for materials to create this token of our love.


We visited the library and brought back as many books as we could carry - about cats, dogs, tigers, a Tiger that wields a club, volcanoes, and more.

I enrolled in an art class to start in a few weeks, if at least one other student will join. I enrolled the Painter in a summer ceramics class as well. He is wait-listed.

I found a pediatrician and arranged well visits for The Painter & The Composer.

An appointment has also been scheduled for us to tour the neighborhood school at which The Painter is enrolled for the fall.


The boxes in the living room have been moved or emptied, their contents still partially strewn about.

Aimless wandering this week has apparently taken us where we need to be.

At my brother's house today, sitting in the warm afternoon sun, with my family around me, my grandmother asked me, "So are you glad you moved?"

My answer is an unqualified yes. I am in the right place. It may not always be easy, but it is where I am supposed to be right now.

Read here about something else that was up and came down to much applause.

Weeding

The flower garden grows like a wild jungle at our new home. We have already discovered in it beautiful daffodils, tulips, trillium, and grape hyacinth, and await the blossoms from lilac, rose, and clematis. Periwinkle covers the entire corner of the yard beside the garage. Dandelion and violets dot the lawn with color. Other plants I can't yet name.

Today we spent the morning outside. I met the neighbor Molly, going for a walk with her three children. She told me Mondays are always free days at the zoo. We agreed to walk together to the coffee shop next week. Perhaps we will get to be friends.

The boys drew with chalk and continued to play in their crazy competitive way, while I pulled the grass out of the garden. Weeding is such a simple pleasure. It allows me to bring order to my surroundings, at least temporarily, and to discover the joys of my garden up close. It forces me to focus on what is in front of me, and allows me to bring order to my mind, at least temporarily. I would gladly have spent the entire day weeding; but the boys who are growing like weeds also needed my focus and tending.

It is amazing how easy it is to write words about my day, when I just start with a few. Life is so full of details!

In the spirit of detail, I think I must be allergic to the maple trees blooming up and down the block; a manageable side-effect of weeding.

Today

Inspired by Shelli at Mama of Letters, I'll be trying to write a few words about each day. Some of them will be here, some may be kept exclusively in my journal. Here is my first offering.

Spring is in the air. Beautiful multi-hued tulips bloom in the backyard: frilly yellow ones with red striping and miniature white ones with pink tips intermingle with reds, yellows, pinks, and one purple beside the basement window.

Boys run along the paths at the nature center as if in a giant maze, until we stop and see two beavers swimming in a small pond. They might have been muskrats.

I talked with Grandma today. She still has some leg and back pain after last year's surgery, and seemed to want company. We will go visit her Sunday, for Mother's Day (mom & dad will be there, too). I learned from Grandma that it will be a day for housework, too, if the weather cooperates.

Already

Already you are so big.



Gone are the tectonic ridges on your head, formed by skull plates overlapping during your birth. Gone, too, are the puffy eyes, the baby acne, your foreskin, and, mostly, cradle-cap.

Already your hands are bigger, your arms steadier; they reach out with purpose to grasp a toy, my hair, my breasts, or anything else near enough to reach.



Already you can roll from front to back.

Already you wake to let me know when you want to eat, rather than sleeping until I wake you. Already you weigh twice what you did when you were born, and your cuddly baby fat jelly rolls around your arms and legs. You have grown to fill your #2 diapers, and are outgrowing your teeny tiny newborn clothes.

Already you have adorned most of my clothes and yours with spit-up.

Already you have rejected binkies, only to later decide they are sometimes okay.

Already you have discovered that the beautiful little thumb of your right hand is soothing in your mouth, and in so doing, have already let me sleep in longer stretches.

Already you have moved to your second home.

Already you have learned to be heard in this chaotic house.

Already you laugh, coo, and smile, and you have already learned to use these talents to keep my attention. You are delighted by playing with mommy and daddy and your biggest brother.



Already you have learned that your brothers can be very loud, but they are sometimes fun to watch.

Already you look like your brothers.


The Painter at 3 months

Already your beautiful face, rapt attention, and smiles charm all who meet you.

Already your eyes are lighter; daddy says they will be like mine.



You are already three months old.

Still?

I thought, coming in April, it would be spring here.

Tonight the snowflakes swirl outside my window,
As sentiment still swirls in my mind.
A chaos of boxes and paper and belongings surrounds me.
I am happy/sad. I am excited/numb. I am tired.
I crave order.

Instead, the wind blows. The rain becomes snow.
The ground - too warm to accept this coat -
Turns glittering crystals back to their liquid state,
And greens the grass.

The boxes dwindle, relegated to the garage.
The dishes and pots find yet another new home.
The first crocus blooms drink in the rain.
My dreams reflect where I've been
And where I'm headed.

This is spring.

Today's Small Celebrations

The Composer had a nice long nap.

The Inventor had a nap for the first time in a week.

The Painter has taken an interest in folding and creatively folded all of his own laundry. (Should really include some pictures here, but let's just say, each item was folded in a different way from the others.)

Our two boy-cats made it safely to grandma & grandpa's house, on their way to our new home.

I packed a box today. Many left, but I'll take them box by box.

Dinner with friends to thank them for their role in the Composer's arrival.

Check-up today. I am apparently healthy and back to my pre-pregnancy weight! A side benefit of feeding baby all hours of the day and night.

Orange Blossoms

I drink in the night air laden with fragrance;
Next year I will miss them.

Baby Love

In response to the prompt from Shawn at Between the Lines, I am reaching beyond the daily trials of being mom, again, to remember the joys of babyhood.

My beautiful little one,

I love the fuzzy down covering your body, like a duckling;
your tiny toes, and your soft, smooth baby skin.

I love your milky, sweaty, scent;
part baby, part mama.

I love your already expressive face,
your mouth forming a little round 'o', as if in surprise,
and your as-yet fleeting smiles.

I love too your vocal expression,
your own language of coos and grunts,
and your contented hums while you fall asleep.

I love the way you snuggle in to my chest when you are tired,
and wiggle your way down to my breast when you are hungry.

I love the way you intently gaze at the toys above your bed,
trying to make sense of the world;
and the way you look at me with your soulful grey eyes,
trusting me completely.

I love the way your little hands reach out to grasp mine
and the way, through all the other changes, you hold me tight.

Dancing Baby

Sometimes, I wish I could see what you are doing. I feel those little kicking feet and grabbing hands, the spinning and dancing. I can see your movements as I rest my hands on my abdomen, and they bounce up and down. When you are moving, I dare not use my belly as a book-rest, as the words will not stay in place.

Sometimes your head causes me to feel lop-sided, off-center. Sometimes, it is difficult to breathe. Then I gently caress your precious skull, nudge it out of the way so I am more comfortable. Sometimes you let me stay in comfort for a while before returning to your previous cozy position.

I don't remember feeling so much when your brothers were babies. Perhaps I was less attentive then, or perhaps my body was simply less worn down by the work of time and chasing two boys. There are other things that I don't remember: early contractions, not painful, but the odd sensation of an involuntary hug for my little boy, and those ailments that were probably the victims of selective memory: lower back pain, aching joints, too-frequent trips to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Too, I sometimes feel over-sized and over-stuffed, ready to bring you into this world, although by the numbers you still have seven or eight weeks left in the warm confines of my womb. I am convinced, through my hazy memory, that I didn't feel this full with my previous babies until much closer to their due dates.

It is partly this feeling of fullness, partly stories related to me by friends and strangers alike, partly the abundance of feeling, and partly a dream last spring about a baby girl that leave me with a little fantasy, despite multiple early ultrasounds witnessing to the contrary, that I am carrying both a boy and a girl. I try to enjoy this fantasy for what it is, and take no expectations from it.

I wonder if you will arrive early, if the hospital is really baby-friendly, if labor will again be induced, if I will avoid anesthesia or drugs, and if you, like your brothers, will come quickly. But your birth will be what it will be, when you are ready.

Harboring expectations would not be fair to you, my dancing baby boy, who, like your brothers, reminds me to look at the world with new eyes.

Front Porch

(not raw, but half-baked)

A bird serenades me
the warm sun caresses my skin
an airplane drones its path from here to there
parrots cackle.

The buzz of a large insect catches my attention
When I open my eyes I discover instead
a hummingbird has come to visit the bird of paradise.

Cars hum along their concrete path,
not knowing I am here.

A bit of music wafts on the breeze.

Leaves, brown and dry
rustle on their limbs before
fluttering to the ground.

Wind chimes tinkle and
the rope clangs
against the flagpole
across the street.

An old man rattles past
pushing a walker
his leg bound
in a large bandage.

Mysterious specks of light
(dust, pollen, rain?)
drop from the trees
to the ground.

Baby rolls over
tells me to sit up straight
and breathe.

Flower stalks waver in the wind.

Cars drone on,
the road rumbling with their passing.

The breeze tickles my toes and
cools my cheek.

And the serenade is back.

Live now with me baby
soon you will know these wonders on your own.

Linked to Wrapped Emotions, The Gift of Every Minute.
This moment was a gift to me this week.

Precious time alone

AD has taken the boys to "climb to the top of the mountain", so I have some time to myself today.

What to do?

The house is a disaster, packages strewn about from the Inventor's birthday, floor needs vacuuming, kitchen needs cleaning, laundry needs to be done, and the Painter suggested that I go to the grocery store while they are hiking, because we are all out of juice boxes (not out of juice, mind you, or milk, or water, but those juice boxes are a critical part of the Painter's kindergarten routine). And AD just asked me to check if we have any film for our old 35 mm cameras, and to see if they work, since I've been wanting to take some photographs to celebrate my gravid state.

Or, I could have a shower, or -imagine- even a bath.

Or, I could catch up on blog reading, and respond to your comments.

Or, I could dig out the Christmas decorations, now that Hanukkah is over, and do something that I do love - decorating.

But the sun on the porch is beckoning me just now, so I think, for a while, I will just go sit.

Happy Birthday, Dreamer

You are beautiful and amazing.

Born in Colorado three years (and three days) ago, you have become quite the traveler, following mommy and daddy on our gypsy-path to three cities and two states, as we searched for a place to work, and a place to wait.

And, you will follow us again, as we search for a place to call home.

You have learned so much in such a short time.

But we have also learned from you.

Life is messy, but that is part of the fun.

Beautiful Boys

Despite my frustrations and imperfect momminess, we have two beautiful boys.

The Painter is exhibiting a delightful curiosity. Last night during his bath, he asked,

"How can the water stay in the tub or go out of the tub just if we touch this button?" To which I responded with a mechanical explanation of the mechanism. "How can the water just come out of the pipes?" More explanation, including the sewer line and water treatment. "How do they get the pee out of the water?"

Later, "How can we feel when we need to pee?" "I don't know, honey."

It's a mystical world at 5 years old, isn't it?

-----

This morning, the Inventor climbed in bed with us. He snuggled quietly for a little while, and then announced "Dis is my middle finner," holding the middle finger of one hand with some grasping fingers from the other hand. "Dere are two finners on dis side and two finners on dis side." There sure are. How did you get so smart?

Next, he said something not quite comprehensible to my still sleepy mind, while holding his index finger. I said "that's your pointer finger." The Inventor corrected me, "No da's my mommy finner. Dis is my pointer finner" (grabbing the third finger on the same hand) "an dis is my daddy finner an dis is my [Painter] finner." Oh. I learn something new every day.

On better days, I notice the world

I stop to inhale the perfumed fragrance of lavender roses outside the office.

I feel the warmth of the sun on my skin.

I look up and with my eyes I trace the barely discernible outline of the mountains through the thick haze.

I hear big band jazz playing at the store, and my feet start to move in time.

I bring back a beautifully contrasting bouquet of red roses and miniature purple and yellow iris.

I feel hunger rumbling in my stomach and savor my lunch.

I feel the baby moving in my belly and I :)