(In)significant Detail

Things That Help

2012-02-14T14:19:00.000-05:00

1. Sunny Sunday afternoon walks in the cold.
2. Hot cocoa for breakfast with homemade marshmallows.
3. Girls in sponge rollers.
4. Blowing up the air mattress in the living room to watch Love Actually in front of the fire on a Saturday night.
5. Leaving the air mattress in the middle of the living room indefinitely.
6. First piano recitals.
7. Creating a pink restaurant with the girls ("The food is mostly pink.")
8. Family Yahtzee night.
9. After-lunch yoga with my littlest yogi.
10. Sisters with matching shirts on Valentine's Day morning.

Three Portraits in February

2012-02-11T09:57:00.000-05:00

1. Saturday night wedding.

Happy because we got to sneak a visit to Bell's between the ceremony and the reception, because (for once) Lisa and I out-danced and out-lasted the boys at a family event, because the DJ played Footloose and Nate danced to it a la Kevin Bacon, because pizza was delivered to the reception and nothing is better than pizza after a long night of drinking and dancing, because Jason and Colin did a ridiculous Kid N Play breakdance routine, because my hair looked pretty cute if I do say so myself.

2. Monday morning.

It was the usual Monday morning chaos, Jason already gone when the rest of us woke up, me packing lunches and walking Annie to school and doing Jemma's pre-school drop-off. I caught a glimpse of myself as I went into the grocery store: no make-up, messy ponytail covered with an old hat, holes in my running capris from that time I fell, a too-big fleece I bought in Canada in 2001. This is a new low, I thought, then came home to take a picture.

3. Friday night.

Jason's in Chicago and it's just me and the girls. I spent the morning running errands with Jemma (her voice in the backseat: "Mommy, can you find this song on the radio? (Sings) 'I don't want to lose your love, toooo-niiiiiight'.") I pulled Jemma and her friend O. to school pick-up in the sled and watched the girls be gleeful at the new piles of snow. We came home and read books in my bed, then took early baths, ordered take-out for dinner, and watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory - the old version, thankyouverymuch - while I put the girls' damp hair in sponge rollers. Then I tucked them in, and it was just me, a pint of cherry stout, and a fresh book in my bed while the snow kept falling outside.

Movie Selection on a Friday Night

2012-02-10T17:44:00.000-05:00

Me: What about Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory?
Annie: I don't know. Is it good?
Me: I saw it when I was little and I really liked it.
Annie: Is it that old?
Me: . . . yeah . .
Annie: Is it one of those black-and-white movies?
Me: Ha! NO.
Annie: Good. Those kinds of movies are boring.

Read Elsewhere: Responsibility

2012-01-26T14:58:00.000-05:00

“Forever is an incorrect concept wrongly based on the idea that the sun isn’t going to explode. We are temporary. This is temporary, and our responsibility as humans within this temporary — this weirdly temporary but still sort of, in some ways, infinite — life that we have, with our gift of consciousness, is to find a way to live as well as we can live, to take the best care that we can of each other and of ourselves, and organize our lives in a way that reflects our values and our hopes for the people who’ll come after us, as well as honoring the people who came before us — that’s a very, very complicated thing to do.” - John Green

Confessions, Unrelated

2012-01-24T20:50:00.000-05:00

Sometimes when I'm at yoga and the instructor seems to be paying the tiniest bit more attention to me than average - standing in front of me a few times, adjusting me just a little bit, maybe smiling at me - I play out an elaborate fantasy in my mind whereby the instructor, after class, stops me as I'm rolling up my mat and says something like, "How long have you been practicing? You are really above average at this. Have you ever considered teaching?" This, in spite of the fact that I am, truly, approximately exactly average at this series of poses, and also in spite of the fact that yoga attempts to cultivate a mindset of non-comparison, non-competitiveness, and non-judgement. I know this, and yet the fantasy? It continues.

*****

One of the things I am (sadly) most looking forward to about our potential house renovation is that we hope to create a new back entry/mudroom with main floor laundry. (This is what you get excited about in your mid-thirties?) This is the third house Jason and I have lived in where the laundry situation has been less-than-ideal (read: oldest models of appliances known to man plunked down in the middle of a creepy, unfinished cement basement), and I envision the laundry positively doing itself with me just popping into my Pinterest-inspired space to press a button or two here and there. If nothing else, it will at least change the fact that the girls somehow KNOW when I am downstairs changing the laundry, and they always need to talk to me or ask me something while I'm down there. Always, as in every single time. So not only am I probably getting wet socks from having to walk on the melted snow on the back steps and hanging out with the cobwebs in the freezing basement, but I am also having to carry on an increasingly difficult conversation with my children, who are definitely sticking their whole heads into the laundry chute and yelling down at me. At least in the future, we'll all be on the same floor, though probably still yelling.

*****

Annie's recent assessment of her favorite show, Wild Kratts, went as follows: "Mom, Wild Kratts is a great show for two reasons. One, it teaches kids some really cool things about animals that they didn't know before. And two, it keeps kids from pestering their mom when she's trying to cook diner and do other things." (She actually used the word "pestering.") I heartily agreed with her, and then I felt guilty.

*****

Connie and I met at Anthropologie on Saturday morning. We had been on the phone, simultaneously realized that neither of us were responsible for solo kid duty, and promptly ditched our husbands for shopping and met up at the mothership. The sale rack did not disappoint, much to Jason's dismay.

*****

I took the girls to their well-child annual appointments today, and the pediatrician asked them each what their favorite vegetables were. "Pickles!" Annie said. "Oh, I love pickles, too," said our great doctor, "but what other vegetables do you like to eat with dinner?" Annie looked sad. "Just pickles," she said, and it was then that I confessed that Jemma eats no vegetables at all. Not even pickles. (And yet . . . in spite of their non-eating and general runtiness, they are, at 32 and 40 pounds, respectively, both solidly in the 20th percentile for weight for their ages! It's the highest percentile they've ever been!)

Day in the Life, Winter 2012

2012-01-19T21:07:00.000-05:00

Dancing Around the Edges

2012-01-18T14:58:00.000-05:00

For the first time in a long time, things are happening in our lives that I don't feel comfortable writing about here. And since some of the things are Big Things and are taking up a lot of space in my brain, I just haven't been writing at all. It seems measly and even a bit dishonest, really, to write about the small things right now, but I am going to do it anyway.

five small things:

1. My parents celebrated forty years of marriage a couple weekends ago. Forty years is kind of a long time. We celebrated with brunch at Cygnus (YUM) and the girls made them cards. That's about as big-deal as they wanted, but I still think it was pretty special.

2. Jemma told me cheerfully that I had a baby in my tummy one morning. Which . . . no. And on that note, the January detox is still mostly in effect.

3. Our family worked for a whole weekend on a five-hundred-piece puzzle in the middle of the floor in the hallway. (I was not around when this location was chosen and the puzzle was begun.) Allocation of puzzle-doing: Stephanie, 3 pieces; Annie, 5 pieces; Jason, 200 pieces; Jemma, all the rest.

4. Last Wednesday, it was 55 and sunny and we played hopscotch in the driveway after running home from school with no coats, like so:

On Friday, the walk home looked like this:

Winter is confusing.

5. We applied for a zoning variance that would allow us to demolish our current garage and re-build it in a better location, and it passed! We are so happy that we'll finally be able to get rid of the concrete/pea gravel/chain-link-fence "backyard" and create a little postage stamp of yard and functional patio for some privacy behind our house. Though outdoor construction won't begin until spring, there's lots to do in the meantime, including moving the girls' bedrooms upstairs and making plans to construct a main floor laundry room (yay!) and an actual mudroom. With luck, this will be the last winter when wet snow pants will leave puddles on my kitchen floor.

Jemma is Five

2012-01-05T12:24:00.000-05:00

Dear Jemma,

Just typing that title - FIVE! - makes me amazed, proud, and sad. Nobody here can believe that you are five whole years old, and yet you are. We have been blessed with five whole years of your delightful, inquisitive, silly, sweet, social, confident self, and we feel so lucky.

Right now, you're at school, which you continue to love, and you talk almost daily about how much you can't wait for next year's school, when you'll be at the same school as Annie. You have learned SO MUCH this year: you can write all your uppercase and most of your lowercase letters; you can read short words; you can spell short words; you can add little numbers; you are fascinated by science; you are intrigued by maps, globes, and Google Earth; you love to read and be read to; you have learned to swim and scoot on a big-girl scooter and do the monkey bars all the way across, both forwards and backwards. We are so proud of you.

At home, you do puzzles, draw pictures, beg to play checkers on the iPad, play with the bazillion stuffed animals and babies we have, and want to be doing anything Annie is doing. You are usually the last one up in the morning and now that it is winter, you prefer to start the day by sitting on the heat vent in your room before you come out to eat breakfast. You can dress yourself completely - even all your snow gear! - and you never, ever, ever want to wear jeans. You want to grow your hair out long again. You love to have your toenails painted.

You are silly. You tell knock-knock jokes that make no sense, you love to watch silly cartoons, and when we read a funny book you've read before, you start giggling even before the funny part happens. Last night you had me and Annie both belly-laughing in my bed just anticipating what Tacky the penguin was going to do.

You are tender-hearted. Even during the limited amounts of time when you watch even the most innocuous television, you're known to run from the room or cover your eyes if anything even sliiiiiightly uncomfortable or loud or scary or awkward is starting to happen. Your compassion makes you such a good companion to our family, because often, just as the rest of us are at our worst in difficult situations, you'll save the day with a kind word, a hug, or by running to get some little thing (a glass of water, a book, a stuffed animal) to make us feel better.

You are enthusiastic. When you are excited about something or hear especially good news, you pump your arms triumphantly in the air and do a little wiggly dance of joy. The smallest things make you happy: dessert, time with beloved family and friends, a good song, a fun time sledding or ice-skating, a good story-and-snuggle session before bed. When I read this quote this morning on my daily happiness calendar, I thought right away of you:

"We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about" - Charles Kingsley

We still tend to baby you sometimes, call you Roo and Moppet and Snuglet, pick you up when you should really have two feet on the ground most of the time. But in spite of your status as the little one in this family, you have so much to teach us about how to be, and you have such a bright future. We are sure of it. We love you so much, and we have loved our five whole years with you in our family.

Happy belated birthday.

Love,
Mommy

Fortunately, Unfortunately

2012-01-04T22:32:00.000-05:00

We checked out an old, classic version of Fortunately, Unfortunately from the library a few weeks ago, and the girls were immediately taken by the literary device. They were so intrigued that they both wrote their own Fortunately, Unfortunately books and wrapped them up to give to Jason as Christmas presents, so part of our Christmas morning involved the two of us reading said books aloud, simultaneously praising the "creativity" and dying inside of laughter (hint: the books involve pirates, monsters, witches, grandmothers, ice-skating, and frogs). After a day like today, here's my version.

Fortunately, we all woke up in our warm house this morning with plenty of food, clothes, and all the basic necessities plus some.

Unfortunately, Annie started crying at breakfast and didn't want to go to school for the second day in a row.

Fortunately, one of the 29475736 things I said must have helped, because after thirty minutes of crying she did indeed get dressed, pulled herself together, and happily went off to school.

Unfortunately, I don't know which of the things I said was the magical thing.

Fortunately, Jemma went to school as happily as she always does.

Unfortunately, Jason and I had to meet with a lawyer to update our will and estate plan right after we dropped her off at school, which led to us spending an hour or so pondering those scenarios you really never want to ponder.

Fortunately, it was quick and painless and we are on the same page with these horrible decisions.

Unfortunately, it is winter.

Fortunately, it was sunny and I pulled Jemma in the sled to pick Annie up from school.

Unfortunately, we were all pretty cold by the time we walked home.

Fortunately, the girls were full of love for me and one another and we had a cozy night of piano-playing, braiding hair, bath bombs, and stories in my bed.

Unfortunately, Annie felt yucky and sad again right before bedtime, leading me to Google yucky and sad things after she finally was soothed to sleep.

Fortunately, there was a new Modern Family on tonight, and Jason got home just in time to watch it with me.

Unfortunately, I feel the beginnings of a sore throat and a sense of dread about tomorrow morning and one child's predicted emotional state.

Fortunately, I know we'll figure it out.

Not Seamless

2012-01-03T22:40:00.000-05:00

The transition, that is, from two-plus weeks of lounging and gift-giving, oversleeping and overeating, traveling and togetherness back to the first, real, down-to-business day of January 2012. There was an hour (plus) of crying last night before bed and another hour (plus) of crying this morning before school.

It was a new experience for us, a child who was expressing this very high level of anxiety about something she'd previously never blinked at, and Jason and I reacted differently.

"Stop it," said Jason, because he, truly, is a person who doesn't really worry, who - aside from one specific work-related event this past year - doesn't have anxiety about things. If his brain starts to worry, he stops. Simple as that. But his advice, given more kindly than I've illustrated here, doesn't work for this particular blonde seven-year-old.

My tack: Walk the fine line between sympathetic comfort and firm instruction. Say, "It's normal to feel like this," and, "Everybody feels like this sometimes," and "I know you're brave and strong and you're going to have a great day!" and "Well, you're not sick and you're not staying home." When those things didn't work and the anxiety ramped up to a level that made me think, Psych consult in aisle four, please, I pulled out a few other things, like this gem of a conversation:

A: "I'm just feeling so terrible!"
Me: "Well, that's weird, because you just had a great day sledding, playing outside, having hot cocoa, practicing your piano, and playing with your sister, so it seems like you're feeling fine."
A: "I'm going to tell Mrs. F. that I'm sick and I need to come home."
Me: "If you call me from school, I'm going to ask to talk to Mrs. F. and I'm going to tell her that you're fine."
A: "But what if I'm sick and I need to come home?"
Me: "You throw up, I'll come get you."

and also the much-avoided, for-emergencies-only "I'll lie in bed with you until you can calm down and fall asleep."

As much as I put a brave face on it and focused on getting her to school this morning, 99% sure that all she needed was one day back in her usual routine, of course I worried about her all day long: talked about her on the treadmill this morning, kept my phone close to me all day, and gave her the biggest hug when she came out of school smiling and reported that she'd had a good day. Pshew.

Read Elsewhere: New Year Inspiration

2012-01-02T20:50:00.001-05:00

A few of the things that have inspired me lately:

*This post at Zen Habits, How to Start, makes it as simple as possible to begin anew.

*This quote from the wise writer Heather Sellers:

"I notice a pattern of (adult) people opening many or most conversations with “How are you?” and the response we give is so often “Good–busy!” Like one word with a hitch in the middle, good-busy. I feel this pattern denies something relational, something really important. I think we can so easily get into a pattern of using “busyness” or “swamped-ness” to keep from making a deep, close, or meaningful connection with the other person before us. I noticed this in myself, and I got so sick of myself! It was like I was bragging about my importance in the world. I’m so busy = I’m so vital to the world!"

*This wisdom, which I linked to earlier, from Shauna Niequist, meant for Christmas but really necessary all year round:

"In our lowest, most fragmented moments, we feel out of control, controlled, in fact, by expectations and to-do lists and commitments and traditions. This is that season, we shrug, when things get a little crazy. No avoiding it.But that's not true. And that's shifting the blame. You've been entrusted with one life, made up of days and hours and minutes. You are spending them according to your values, whether you admit it or not.Let's be courageous in these days.Let's choose love and rest and grace.Let's use our minutes and hours to create memories with the people we love, instead of dragging them on one more errand or shushing them while we accomplish one more seemingly necessary thing."

*And this Brian Andreas quote I just wrote on the chalkboard by the back door, right above our family's resolutions: “Everything changed the day she figured out there was exactly enough time for the important things in her life.”

2011 Year in Review: Yoga, Jamaica, and Balance

2012-01-01T18:38:00.002-05:00

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?

Saw U2, Mega 80's, and Sara Barielles in concert. Took the girls to Great
Wolf Lodge and Chicago overnight, the Nutcracker, and Jamaica.
Learned to make homemade marshmallows and dinner rolls. Published
two poems. Celebrated my dad's 65th birthday, our twelfth wedding
anniversary, the tenth girls' weekend, Annie's 7th birthday and Jemma's
5th birthday. Ran the Grand Rapids half marathon and became obsessed
with hot yoga. Sold a house. WatchedAnnie get her ears pierced. Spent
a weekend on Mackinac Island. Wore my wedding dress to
a party that was not my own wedding. Started getting allergy shots,
and started some new Christmas traditions with our family.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? 

Here's what I resolved a year ago:

1. Kick the year off with a January detox - no alcohol, no red meat, very little "white" anything, lots of water and fresh fruits and vegetables for one month. Did it! Loved it! Going to do it again this year!

2. Find a meaningful way to "give back" and start doing it. Sadly, nope.

3. Establish good systems to organize the things in my life that consistently
overwhelm me: photos, recipes, books, and kids' art. Mostly yes: I started using Goodreads to track my books, have been much better about uploading and printing photos, and took a weekend to organize my recipes and make bins for the best kids' art.

4. Complete and make public my Life List. Check.

For 2012, I'm personally resolving to write daily, and possibly
to work on a larger and more ambitious project than
this blog. Our family is resolving to find some type of
community service we can do together.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? 

My friend Andrea had a new babe, and Chris and Sarah added a
fourth child to their family, but I am having a hard time remembering
many other birth announcements on our fridge this year.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Sadly, Jason's uncle John.

5. What countries did you visit?

Jamaica!

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

I'm wishing lately for more clarity about what the next stage of my life
is going to look like and I'm always wishing for more time to write.
I'd like more patience every year.
As far as material possessions, though? I'm crazy lucky.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

I just wrote a few of them down here.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? 

For the first time since I've been doing this year-end review, I really
feel like 2011 was the year where I found a good and healthy balance
between self, family, friends, work, play, and all the elements that
make up my life.

9. What was your biggest failure?

I lost my temper with the kids more that I'd like to admit, and while
there are days and moments when I feel great about the way I'm raising
my kids, there are also days and
moments when I feel sure I'm making one mistake after another.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Nothing major, thankfully.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

New fancy eye cream and lipgloss, a cool Eames walnut stool, piano
lessons for Annie. the book The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, babysitting,
a week in paradise.

12. Where did most of your money go?

All the usual places, plus some extra to sell the old house, refinance
this one, and pay off both cars.

13. What did you get really excited about?

I excitedly anticipated my annual girls' weekend, all the live music events
we got to see this year, and a more meaningful and low-key holiday
season. I fell in love with yoga even more this year but still appreciate a
good, hard run. I loved Tina Fey's book, Bossypants, and got sucked
into Mad Men, too. It's embarrassing to admit, but I was awfully excited
about the new Anthropologie store opening just minutes from our house.
Going there with a cup of coffee feels like a little getaway.

14. What song will always remind you of 2011?

Well, 2011 was the year our family got sucked into the Bieber Fever,
but if I have to choose a specific song, it'd probably be Dog Days Are
Over by Florence + The Machine, simply because I heard it performed
live the first time I encountered this strange and lovely artist
and because we've since danced to it in the kitchen many a time.

15. Compared to this time last year, are you: 

– happier or sadder? You know, I think I'm a little happier.
– thinner or fatter? Same, same - but I can do more push-ups!
– richer or poorer? Richer.

16. What do you wish you’d done more of? 

More silly play with my kids while they still want to do it with me, more
writing, more generous reactions to difficult situations.

17. What do you wish you’d done less of? 

Less yelling, less procrastinating, less getting worked up about things
that aren't really important.

18. How did you spend Christmas?

We went up north to celebrate with Jason's family the weekend before,
had a cozy Christmas Eve just the four of us, and went to my parents'
house in the afternoon on Christmas Day.

19. What was your favorite TV program?

Still loving Modern Family, and I'll note that the girls would probably
say Wild Kratts.

20. What were your favorite books of the year?

Bossypants, Room, State of Wonder, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,
Olive Kitteridge, Let the Great World Spin, The History of Love,
The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, The Price of Motherhood, The Art of
Fielding, Bittersweet, Salvage the Bones.

21. What was your favorite music from this year? 

A friend made me a fun CD that brought me up to speed a little, full
of Mumford and Sons, The Decemberists, and other assorted current
goodness.

22. What were your favorite films of the year?

I really liked Crazy, Stupid, Love. I . . . barely can remember any other
movies I saw this year.

23. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 34, Annie turned 7, and we went to brunch at Rose's after church.

24. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Ahhh, if I'm really reaching, perhaps children who listen on the first try?

25. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?

Trying to pull it together just the tiniest bit more than in years past.

26. What kept you sane?

These answers seem to be the same every year: friends, running, yoga,
Jason, coffee, alcohol, writing, reading, an hour or so a day not speaking
to anyone.

27. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011. 

I'm not feeling particularly wise right now, but I do think I got better
about having honest (if difficult) conversations rather than avoiding
confrontations, and the honest approach turns out better every time.

Writing the Moments, 2011

2011-12-29T22:50:00.000-05:00

The February blizzard moves in just as the Daddy/Daughter dance begins, and Jason and Annie arrive home covered in a layer of white. We wake up the next morning to inches and inches of snow drifted halfway up our door and every school closed. Jason cancels patients for the day. Our streets and sidewalks - usually cleared by the dozens of speedy city plows - remain completely covered with snow. Just after lunch, Sarah and Katie and I strap on snowshoes and wind our way through city blocks and across baseball fields step by step. The sun is out. There is no traffic. The only sound is our voices and laughter as we cross the street and traipse across the frozen lake. We talk about books, about upcoming vacations, about soba noodles. We find ourselves at Rose's and it seems right to strip off a layer of snow gear and have pints of dark beer in a booth. When we hike back to our street, the neighborhood has gathered in our front yard with their sleds and cameras and children and there is a pile of snow a mile high next to our driveway.

*****

I wake up in a canopy bed draped in white netting, the room still smelling faintly of mosquito coil incense, and I can't wait to throw open the shuttered wooden door and see the sun rise over the ocean. The girls giggle in their beds in the next room and I roll out my yoga mat so I can face the water. I breathe half-heartedly through a few poses but what I really want is to sit, cross-legged, and watch the sky turn incrementally lighter by the minute, listen to the waves lap against the shore below. After breakfast I take a kayak out along the coast as far as I dare to go alone and then I drift. I tilt my face up and close my eyes and let the sun beat down on my smile. When I return, we all swim together off the raft that's anchored off shore, and there is a moment when I am quite sure that this is our whole family as it is meant to be. Later, I lie in a hammock that's just feet above the water with the girls and take turns reading them the books they bring to me as the sun gets lower in the sky and Jason snorkels off the reef.

*****

We've spent the day on the beach, a jumble of dogs and kids and jet skis, and there was an all-ages dance party after cocktail hour but before dinner, and now the children have been de-sanded and tucked into bunk beds. It is dark and starry and still warm this late at night as we make our way down wooden steps to the beach and laugh our way out to the deep. We have not been night-swimming since long before marriage and children but this August night the stars align and we all stay in as long as we want until we go back up to the hot tub, until Jemma comes out to find us at midnight and we remember that we are middle-aged parents, after all.

*****

It's hot and we've camped for the day at a magical place where North Bar Lake flows out to Lake Michigan via a warm, shallow, clear tributary. After we picnic and the girls try to catch a few fish with their grandpa, we leave Mimi and Jemma behind to play in the sand and we walk north to the dune overlook. Jason, Annie and I start clawing our way up and she has never climbed anything like this before but up she scrambles like a monkey, stopping to rest whenever I do, smiling proudly when she reaches the top. We stand for a moment and look out at the Manitou Islands glinting in the sunshine, and then we begin bounding down. She and I hold hands and practice jumping, feet together, and then we bound, one leg at a time, our strides becoming wider and faster the farther down the dune we go. She lets go of my hand and goes a little ahead of me. When we look at each other again, we are both smiling with pure joy.

*****

We're at Great Wolf Lodge with cousins and we've split up to wait in line in pairs for various rides. Annie and I have climbed the stairs with our tube and are waiting for our turn when we look down and see Jason and Jemma in their tube as it shoots out the bottom of a giant water slide. I see Jason paddle the tube over to the steps and get out, then help Jemma out of her seat so she is standing on the pool deck. She jumps up and down with glee, then pumps her hands victoriously over her head, a huge smile on her face, and wants to get in line to do it again. And again.

*****

We're wearing neon-lettered sweatshirts, blue eye-shadow, and side ponytails. We're drinking Red Bull and vodkas against our better judgment. We're crowding the stage to get as close as possible and we're singing the lyrics to every song until we're hoarse, dancing until the music stops, smiling so much our cheeks hurt the next day. (Also, our heads.)

*****

It's girls' weekend and the six of us are at Connie's cottage. The kitchen island is covered with food: cheese, crackers, olives, almonds, cereal mix, avocados, chips, brownies. We sit on stools or we stand, idly drinking a glass of wine, but what we really want to do is talk. Gina starts a story and we are rapt except for the parts where we can't help but interject our disbelief: "I love this story!" I say, halfway through, before I even know what's going to happen next.

*****

It's freezing on Mackinac Island and we've bundled ourselves in down before getting into a horse-drawn carriage to wind our way up to the center of the island for dinner. When we arrive, the restaurant is full of the clinking of glasses and silverware and there are fires burning in the huge old fireplaces. We're seated at a table in the back corner, up a few steps from the rest of the dining room, and from our vantage we can see the packed house, candlelight and wine making everyone's cheeks rosy. We split a bottle of red, Jason orders beef goulash with spaetzle, and he is so happy when it comes that I think he might cry. Our bellies full of warm food, we take another carriage home, breathing in the cold air, listening to the clip-clop of horseshoes, holding hands under the blanket.

*****

I'm sitting in a church pew at Uncle John's funeral having struggled through a hymn and passed Kleenex down the row before deciding definitively that there should be no more looking at Aunt Bonnie. His two best friends, looking for all the world like characters from a movie about the mob or maybe Texas football, get up to talk. They talk about life and loyalty, childhood friends and, yes, football. Then one of them says, a little abruptly in Aunt Bonnie's direction, "You know he loved you so much, girl," and the tears are welling up again because I am realizing how rare that kind of love is, how lucky I am to have it, and how it might feel to lose it. In spite of myself, I look at her again. She is beautiful, nodding, crying. She knows.

*****

It is the fourth of July and we have stood in the heat of the parade until the fire trucks sprayed us down at the end. Now we settle on the huge front porch at Trevor and Lisa's and the girls race by in a blur of red, white, and blue while the grown-ups drink mojitos and play guitar. Later, the kids will get cranky and scared of the fireworks and too full of sugar for our liking, but just now they're getting wet in the sprinkler and we don't care. We're looking out at the blue bay, just talking, and feeling like there's no other place in the world to be than with family up north on the fourth of July.

*****

The tree is just up and we decorated it today without breaking any ornaments and with a minimum of fighting or tears. There's a fire in the fireplace, Elf on the television, hot cocoa in our tummies, and little girls in flannel jammies in our laps. Thanksgiving is just over and the whole of the Christmas season stretches out in front of us. Our family of four is snug and happy and healthy in this cozy house, and all is right with the world.

Christmas and Birthday, Recapped

2011-12-29T11:09:00.000-05:00

Now that Christmas, Jemma's birthday, and all the assorted celebrations seem like the distant past, I'm loathe to do a holiday recap but know I'll regret it later if I don't. So.

Christmas Eve: For the first time in my life, I did not gather with my mom's side of the family for an evening of appetizers and plates and plates of little sugared treats. In the spirit of less is more and quality over quantity that we tried to embrace this holiday season, we made Christmas Eve about our own little family of four instead. We went to church at 5:00 p.m. for the family service (in years previous, we have never, ever attended church on Christmas Eve or on Christmas because of various family obligations) and it felt sweet and right to be singing O Holy Night on that very special night.

On our way home, we took time to drive up and down the streets in our area that deck out the curbs with luminaries every Christmas Eve. At home, we began a new tradition of Christmas Eve fondue dinner by candlelight. We had sparkling grape juice for the girls, and while we took turns spearing tart green apples and sourdough bread cubes to dip in the hot cheese, we also took turns toasting each other, our not-present family members, and our favorite places and things and events of the year. I may have cried a little.

Cookies and milk set out for Santa and girls tucked in beds, Jason and I filled stockings and talked about where we'd been and what we'd done for the last fifteen Christmasses we've been together, then went to sleep knowing the house was fully prepped for a morning of chaos and cheer.

Christmas Day: I've written before about how all our Christmas mornings (and seasons) are bound to blend together in my mind, so every year I try to single out a few memorable details. This was the Christmas, then, when

the green grass predominated over snow, much to the girls' dismay.
the girls and I led Jason on a scavenger hunt to find his new skis.
the furnace quit at some point during our present-opening frenzy and we spent lunch squeezed together at a little table we'd pulled to stand in front of the fireplace and spent the night with space heaters and air mattresses until the repairman could come the next morning, when the majority of the house was 53 degrees.
Santa brought Annie an iPod touch (onto which she immediately loaded an awesome-in-its-randomness mix of The Beatles, Toto, Justin Bieber, Abba, Michael Jackson, Billy Joel, and Brandi Carlile) and Jemma a pink Razor scooter which she scooted up and down the hallway.
we spent the afternoon with my family at my parents' house opening presents, playing fun games, and eating dinner with my grandparents.
I snuck in a run around the lake with a friend and Jason got out on his bike on Christmas Eve in the sunshine.
Annie and I made marshmallows for the first time together and Jemma destroyed the kitchen rolling them in powdered sugar.

Two days later, Jemma turned five. Five. Five is huge, big-kid, momentous (for me) and I can literally not believe she's five years old. We woke her up with balloons and YET MORE presents, celebrated with a Sugarplum Fairy dance party with eight of her friends in the afternoon, and had Smitten Kitchen double chocolate layer cake, homemade macaroni and cheese, and raspberries for dinner. We measured her, and sure enough, she's half an inch taller than she was just six months ago.

We've filled the holiday break with a trip up north, ice-skating downtown after dinner out, a million art projects, a night of cozy fun with friends and neighbors, a couple hours of burning energy at the gymnastics place, swimming at the pool, hours of Lego-building, an epic trip to the library, playing checkers and tic-tac-toe on the iPad, a lot of television and a lot of bickering. Just now, I'm hunkered in a coffee shop, post-yoga, trying to snatch a few minutes of quiet before I take the girls roller-skating this afternoon. I'm trying to gather my thoughts about this year that's almost over, figure out what 2012 is going to be about for me and for our family, and capture the texture of this exact time in our life.

Birthday letter to Jemma and bunches of Christmas photos to come, but for now I'm just sweaty, tired, a little hungover, and trying my best to get the details of the last week down before they're gone.

Around our House on Christmas Eve Eve

2011-12-23T21:56:00.000-05:00

Read Elsewhere: Present over Perfect

2011-12-21T19:53:00.000-05:00

If you, like me, sometimes want to punch the song "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" in the face, go and read this. I came across it tonight, and I'm adopting it as my manifesto - for the holidays, for life. Shauna Niequist is my hero.

Six Days 'Til Christmas

2011-12-19T23:13:00.000-05:00

We're on Day Four of sick Annie over here (so our jolly up-north Express Christmas weekend was not quite as jolly as we had hoped it would be, though it was still jolly nonetheless) and Day One of eleventy billion days off school. The first time-out happened at 9:29 a.m.

Jemma is jack-rabbiting around the house like a jumping bean all day long, constantly asking and re-asking how many days until Christmas, until her birthday. She loves her new purple footie pajamas but they make her feet too hot so she wears them right up until bedtime, at which point she switches to her snowflake jammies, which do not make her feet too hot. When she sings Rudolph, she says, "had a berry shiny nose," and I wish she would always sing it that way.

Annie gingerly eats one bite of yogurt, one bite of toast, takes one sip of tea before lying back down in her bed. Her hair is a pile of mangled golden knots but I pet it anyway. She wishes aloud fervently that there would never be any more germs in the world, worries aloud hysterically that she will still be sick on Christmas, circles back time and again to why oh why it had to be her, sick, not able to play in the snow with her cousins.

There is a giant new box of Legos spilled across the bedroom floor, a pan of caramel cooling on the kitchen counter, an American Girl doll sitting in the chair across from me, fully dressed in riding clothes. There is a cookie exchange and a piano lesson and things to schedule into the new year.

I go to yoga tonight after dinner, kiss the girls good-night as Jason is reading to them in our bed, breathe my way through seventy-four minutes of movement. During the seventy-fifth minute, as we lie on our backs with our eyes closed in the warm room in the dark with Christmas lights twinkling at the ceiling, she says, "There is nothing for you to do right now. There is nowhere to go. There is no list. There is no phone. There is just you, and this mat, and this breath, and this room."

Tomorrow will be five days 'til Christmas.

Preschool, Observed

2011-12-14T22:04:00.000-05:00

As luck would have it in this, the most ~~ridiculously busy~~ wonderful time of the year, I've been volunteering in Jemma's classroom every single day this week. Tuesday was the day we celebrated her birthday and the birthday of her good friend H., who also has a December birthday that will occur over the holiday break and who (sadly) is moving out of state after the new year.

H's mom and I planned a joint treat - ice cream with lots of fun toppings - and converged on the classroom to set up the treat and enjoy circle time with the birthday girls. We'd scooped all the ice cream, set out all the toppings at the two snack tables, and then we stood for a minute, watching as the kids sang a few of their adorable holiday songs, including one about Santa to the tune of "Bingo." When they were done, having ho- ho'd their way through the final chorus, Mrs. C. said, "Good job! You remembered all the verses! Kiss your brains!" and, you know what, they did. Proudly and immediately and confidently kissed their own open palms and planted a kiss right on the tips of their heads.

When do we stop doing these things?

*****

Today I was the Holiday! Party! Helper!, which meant showing up half-way through the classroom time to (again) set up the day's snack, clean up all the requisite hot chocolate spills, and then to assist with the pinata-whacking for Las Posadas. I was laying out Christmass-y napkins next to plates of Clementines and Rice Krispie treats when a little boy disengaged from the circle and came up to me.

"Who are YOU?" he asked.
"I'm Mrs. D." I said brightly. "It's nice to meet you."
He sat down at a seat. "I play Mortal Kombat every day at my house! Pow!" He was thrilled with his announcement. I looked at my friend A., my eyebrows at the ceiling, a smile frozen on my face.
"Gosh, that's interesting information," I told the little boy.
"Yeah!" he continued, "I'm a GAMER!" and A. and I almost died on the spot.

*****

Tomorrow is a field trip to sing those adorable holiday songs at a retirement home. God only knows what will happen there.

Making a List, Checking it Twice

2011-12-12T21:31:00.001-05:00

Popcorn: strung.
Pudding by the fireplace: eaten.
Christmas gifts: purchased and wrapped.
Christmas cards: addressed and mailed.
Granola: made and packaged.
Twinkling Christmas lights in a five-mile radius: viewed while drinking hot cocoa and listening to Perry Como in the car.
Polar Express: watched.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: sung in the bathtub.
Christmas Story: read.
Peanut butter fudge: made (and partially eaten).
Angel Tree gift and food pantry donation: dropped off.
Joy to the World: played on the piano by Annie.
Advent calendars: half-opened.
Nutcracker: fancily attended:

Things That Happened

2011-12-10T11:48:00.000-05:00

Jason belongs to a small group of guys, a club of sorts which I should not even be writing about because, like Fight Club, the first rule of the club is: do not talk about the club. But anyways, they get together every once in a while and one thing they do is drink. It's not an excessive, frat-boy kind of drinking but instead a nerd-like kind of drinking that involves blind tastings and rating systems and whatnot. Needless to say, although these events usually occur within a very short distance from our home, I never let Jason go out the door without yelling, "Don't drink and drive!"at him. I'm sure he finds this helpful. But it seems that he is listening, because when I asked him on Thursday morning if he had walked home the night before, he said casually, "Dave pulled me home in the Chariot behind his bike." So there is now a photo of Jason, covered with a blanket and looking for all the world like Mini-Me from Austin Powers (but in a stroller rather than a Baby Bjorn), in a bike trailer.

*****

I went to the mall yesterday. I'd been needing to replace my concealer and procrastinating the visit to the Bobbi Brown counter until I could go on a day when I'd actually showered and was wearing something other than sweaty workout clothes. (Why do I feel the need to look my best for the complete stranger at the makeup counter yet I present my just-finished-75-minutes-of-yoga self at my child's school on a regular basis?) Here's how the interaction went:

Me: Hi, I need new undereye concealer, but I don't see the little pot I have right now.
Beautiful Makeup Lady with Intriguing Accent: Ah, yes. We've discontinued that packaging; the concealer comes packaged with powder now, too.
Me: Ah, okay, I'm not sure what color I'll need, then.
BMLwIA: Well, if you have a moment I can put you in the chair and try one or two on for shade matching.
Me (FATAL MISTAKE): Oh, sure.
BMLwIA, frowning at my face: Now, what are you using for an undereye cream?
Me: Oh, I just use one all-over moisturizer for my whole face.
BMLwIA: (shakes head sadly) No, no. Is most important skin to care for! (Takes pot of thick white cream and begins dabbing it under my eyes.)
Me: That does look . . . dewy.
BMLwIA: Now, next we need to put a corrector under the concealer.
Me: I . . what is corrector?
BMLwIA: You'll see, it brightens the undereye area and really camouflages the dark circles you have.
Me, looking in mirror: Yeah. It does.
BMLwIA: Now I apply undereye concealer, set with powder, and finish with bronzer. Voila!"
Me, looking in mirror, looking about a zillion times better than I did four minutes earlier: My husband is going to kill me.

I don't know, I'm in my mid-thirties, and I suppose it's time to move beyond the drug-store make-up that I've been using since I was a teenager. And when Jason sees the credit card bill, I'll just remind him about that one time he went to Costco to buy eggs and came home with $150.00 worth of groceries.

*****

We're taking the girls to see The Nutcracker this afternoon. To say they are excited would be an understatement. Annie appeared in the kitchen at 7:30 this morning, dressed head to toe in the outfit she's going to wear to the ballet, complete with tights, shoes, and headband. "Can you curl my hair?" she asked. "And can I borrow a pair of your earrings?" In six hours, Annie, in six hours . . .

*****

A year ago right now, Jason and I were in Quebec City. Sigh.

I Have Been . . .

2011-12-08T11:21:00.000-05:00

. . . making lists, checking them twice, losing the lists, and making more lists.
. . . avoiding getting the mail, because I haven't addressed my Christmas cards yet and I don't particularly want to see the eager beaver ones in my mailbox.
. . . going to book club and actually talking about the book (Room by Emma Donoghue).
. . . using an inappropriately large portion of my child-free time at hot yoga, my latest exercise obsession.
. . . getting up before the rest of the family in the mornings just to drink my coffee in the dark and look at the Christmas tree.
. . . wishing for snow, even though I usually loathe it, because it just doesn't seem like almost-Christmas without it.
. . . painting toenails with holiday colors.
. . . learning how to download free e-books from the library onto the iPad (magic!).
. . . wishing Annie would stop answering, "a hamster" when asked, "What do you want from Santa?"
. . . sending out invitations for Jemma's 5th birthday party!
. . . planning our lives into February, already.
. . . eating Clementines.
. . . snuggling with the girls on the couch to watch bits of Polar Express and The Grinch.
. . . doing laundry.
. . . scouting for new, improved holiday cookie recipes.
. . . barely cooking.
. . . avoiding writing.
. . . braiding the girls' hair.
. . . listening to Annie practice her piano.
. . . swooning over Ryan Gosling in the movie Crazy Stupid Love.
. . . trying to make this season about cozy joy and anticipation instead of frantic preparation.
. . . eating more than my fair share of sushi.
. . . reminiscing that Jason and I were on our way to Quebec City exactly a year ago today.
. . . thinking about getting a job.
. . . wanting to freeze time.

Things They Say: Listening to "Santa Baby" Edition

2011-11-30T17:21:00.000-05:00

Jemma: This girl is silly, because Santa is not a baby!
Annie, matter-of-fact: Well, he used to be.
Jemma: Yeah, and when he was a baby, he lived on our street!

Animated With a Love

2011-11-27T21:26:00.000-05:00

It was a magnificent weekend. It was the kind of weekend where you laugh until your sides hurt, revel in the crisp air during a hilly early-morning trail run, listen to little girls play incessantly, find the perfect small things while shopping, have real conversations with well-loved people, and find yourself saying grace around a Thanksgiving table that's full of magically perfect food.

We spent Thursday and Friday up north, where it was warm enough that all the girls could hopscotch their hearts out in the driveway while they burned off their Thanksgiving dinner but cool enough that they warmed themselves around the fire when they came back inside. Watching the four of them together - now swathed in Mimi's scarves, now dancing a polka around the living room, now working on an art project with their blonde heads bowed in concentration - gets me every time. One our drive home yesterday, Annie lamented that her beloved cousins don't live closer, and I could only agree with her lament.

Jason's grandparents were there this year, too, and though they are not as young as they were when I met them, they still bring a sturdy love with them everywhere they go. They watched the action with smiles on their faces, full of praise and encouragement for us and our lives, full of pride in the "smart, beautiful" little ones who love their custard pie and their Slovak nursery rhymes.

We headed home yesterday, stopping en route to make our traditional pilgrimage to The Corner Bar and Hart's Christmas Tree farm. For the first time we can remember, there wasn't a speck of snow on the ground when we combed the fields for the perfect Frasier Fir. We wandered a bit more this year because of the warmth, and the girls spent all their pent-up energy hopping from tree stump to tree stump and searching for milkweed pods.

Last night, after unpacking the family wagon and dragging the Christmas decorations upstairs and the tree into its stand, we kissed the girls good-bye and went out on the town for a night, first to meet up with my extended family for drinks and then to have sushi with JT, Di, Chris, and Sarah. The six of us took down a huge table of some really beautiful food, and - true to form - Jason ordered something new and absurd, which this time happened to be a roll that came to the table wrapped in foil and lit in fire while we all watched. (It was actually delicious.)

Today was rainy and dreary, and we were all about a fire in the fireplace, hot cocoa, and putting all the decorations on the tree and around the house. Jason took the girls to the pool this afternoon while I did laundry and got groceries for the week, and then our foursome ate dinner in front of the television for our annual viewing of Elf, which is perhaps my very favorite Christmas movie. Watching Annie and Jemma watch the silly parts is almost as fun for me as watching the movie itself. Almost.

They're in bed now and the fire is dying down. I'm on the couch with the computer, planning the week and making lists, trying to keep track of Christmas gifts and travel plans, and Jason's folding laundry and watching Home Alone. The fridge is full, the clothes are clean, and we're fortified by four full days together. We're feeling (briefly, I'm sure) ready for the holiday season and all the accompanying joy and chaos, appreciative and aware of all the animated life in our life right now.

"We are to be animated with a love which embraces all, of every rank and character. A love, which forgets divisions and outward distinctions, that breaks down the old partition walls and seeks a divine spark in every intelligence. Love which longs to redress the existing inequalities of society, which substitutes generous motives for force, which sees nothing degrading in labor but honors all useful occupation, and which everywhere is conscious of just claims and rights of all. Calling upon the mighty to save, not crush, the weak. And a love, which in a word, recognizes the infinite worth of every human spirit." - William A. Channing

Don't Do It

2011-11-23T16:55:00.000-05:00

This morning started out fairly well: coffee with peppermint creamer; the girls playing checkers on the iPad and then creating some sort of secret project in Jemma's bedroom; Annie helping me make homemade cranberry sauce and giggling about every pop! the berries made; sunshine and playdates and bread-making ahead. Jason had headed off to an early meeting, and I felt like a pretty great mom, if I do say so myself.

Then I pushed my luck and dared to leave the house. Why not, I thought, go to the library and exchange books and movies so we'd have brand-new, fresh ones for this weekend's road trips? And, because it's sunny and because we're eco-friendly and fit, why not walk there?

Big mistake. HUGE. The girls fought the whole way there about who should be carrying the books and about how many movies we could check out and who would pick them. They fought while we were there over who got to check the items out, then fought about who got to push the automatic door-opening button on the way out, and I abandoned thoughts of running into the grocery store for the single thing I needed.

Worse, Jemma began to cry the minute we stepped out of the library's doors on our way home. "I don't want to waaaaaaaaaaaalk!" she wailed. I tried optimism: "It's so short! We'll be home in five minutes!" I tried cajoling: "How about you race Annie to that pole?" I tried mirroring: "You're tired. You don't want to walk. I hear you saying you wish we had driven." Still she wailed, and I tried tough love: "Jemma, I don't like to listen to you cry. I'm going to walk ahead and I'll wait for you when you calm down." She wailed some more, Annie and I walked ahead, and then she started calling for us.

"Wait for meeeee!" she cried desperately. "Mommy, wait!"

Aha! I thought. "I'd be happy to wait for you if you're done crying," I said, pleased that my plan had worked. We were almost halfway home; we'd just have to make it a block or two more. Annie and I stopped and waited the few seconds it took for Jemma to catch up with us. As soon as she did, she started having a fit again.

"I don't want to waaaaaaalk! I'm tired of walllllllllking!!!" she trailed along behind us, then sat smack down on the sidewalk and screamed, much to the amusement of the college-aged neighbor and her mother out for a morning walk. So again, Annie and I walked a little ahead, trying in vain to outrun the screaming, and again Jemma called for us to wait, and again she ceased crying right up until the second she finally caught up with us. Don't do it, I thought, don't do it, don'tdoitpleasepleaseplease and "WAAAAAA!"

We finally made it home and I marveled that in less than an hour a place that had been the setting for such an idyllic morning had been populated with a four-year-old screaming about nothing, a mother with a tight-lipped mouth slamming peanut butter on the counter, and a seven-year-old who used the opportunity to sneak off with the iPad again. It reminded me of a passage that made me laugh with recognition in When Did I Get Like This? by Amy Wilson:

Me: What kind of bagel would you like, Connor? We don't have any raisin, but we have plain and sesame.
Connor: Why didn't you get me raisin?
Me: They didn't have any.
Connor: But I really wa-anteddd . . . rai-sinnnnn . . .
Me: THEY DIDN'T HAVE ANY.
Connor: (breaking down) Why couldn't you - just get me - a - raisinnn - baa-aa-gell . . . I wanted - it - so - MUUUCHHH AHHHH . . . .

This is the point where I bodily carry/drag him to any part of the house in which I cannot hear him, or at least will hear him only faintly, banging his fists on the wall and crying out to the gods that this "always happens to" him. I am not sure if ostracization is the correct disciplinary technique here, but I am sure it is better than the Saying of Things Mommy Might Regret, or worse.

After a while, silence. Connor reemerges, sniffling, clearly attempting to function rationally. I, modeling coolheadedness, act as if nothing had happened.

Me: Hi, bud. Are you ready for breakfast now?
Connor: (lip quivering) I am. But, Mommy. Really. I just have to ask you one thing.
Me: Don't do it.
Connor: Why didn't you-
Me: I'm warning you.
Connor: - buy me a -
Me: I'm begging you.
Connor: - raa-hay-hay-zinnnn BAAAAAA-GELLLLLL . . .

Later, I find the patience to build a Lego house with them, we bake rolls together for Thanksgiving, and we sort Annie's laundry in quiet peace. But that moment on the sidewalk, when I was loaded down with library books and movies (for them) and Annie was furious at her coat (that I bought her) and Jemma, almost five, was determined to ruin what could have been a perfectly pleasant quarter-mile walk, I fantasized for a minute or two about being the mom of the college-aged daughter. For the love, Jemma. Just stop crying. Don't do it.

Six Things Now

2011-11-21T21:58:00.000-05:00

I keep trying to write some sort of coherent post, but it's not happening. (This afternoon, while I had a little time to write because Jemma was napping? I took a nap. So.) Instead, this:

1. Sometimes I wonder why the moms I know seem to be just as busy and frantic as our own mothers were. At first glance, this seems to not make sense, since my generation tends toward fewer children, more modern conveniences, and more helpful spouses. Do you know what I think is causing this problem? EXERCISE. We do it, our mothers generally did not. And it takes up a lot of time, what with the working out and the post-workout showering and the workout-clothes laundry. I am not sad about this, I am just saying.

2. Things I have been requested to bring to Thanksgiving: rolls, cranberry sauce. I have never made either thing, but I do love a challenge in the kitchen, so there are two bags of cranberries and a new 3-lb. bag of flour in my kitchen right now.

3. I have read Three! Books! In a Row! to which I have assigned the rare-but-special five-star rating on Goodreads. They are Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, and The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. Go. Read them. And tell me what I should read next.

4. I have begun stockpiling Christmas gifts for the girls in the basement since our house is old and lacks sufficient closet space. I warned Jason the minute that I started this: "I'm putting Christmas presents downstairs. Don't let the girls down there from now on." I didn't think it would be a problem, because the basment is unfinished and creepy and the only things down there are the Costco overflow groceries, the laundry room, Jason's "workbench," and the hundreds of empty beer bottles our teetotaling Baptist-ish contractor was able to see multiple times last week.

On Sunday, I took the girls down to the track to do some bleachers and sprints with me, which they participated in surprisingly well, and when we returned home I promised them Gatorade. I left the kitchen briefly and when I came back, Jason was alone in the kitchen while the soup simmered on the stove.

"Where are the girls?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.

"Getting Gatorade in the basement," he said, and I ran down the stairs like a crazy person, where I found the girls adorably trying to figure out how to un-shrink-wrap the case of Costco Gatorade . . . about three feet away from a giant shopping bag full of most of their unwrapped Christmas presents. Luckily they had no idea, but you can bet someone got the stinkeye when the three of us emerged from the basement.

5. I went to Trader Joe's last weekend and have since become obsessed with their mini peppermint waffle cookies. I bought two packages. I ate the last cookie today. (Today, with its napping and its cookie-eating, really makes me look good, no?) Why, WHY can there not be a Trader Joe's in this town?

6. Jemma celebrated Thanksgiving today at preschool with a "feast." She now knows a fair amount about the Wampanoag Indians and how to make butter from cream by shaking it while you dance. She was able to choose her Native American name, which is Princess Love Dancing Sunlight.

Thankful . . .

2011-11-18T09:01:00.000-05:00

. . . for shopping road trips with friends when the car looks like this on the way home;

joyous moments in leaf piles on sunny Sunday afternoons;

the side ponytail and the modified side ponytail;

Barkeep's Friend, for when you burn dinner like this because you're out raking leaves;

parent-teacher conferences where the teacher wishes aloud for "a classroom full of Jemmas" (we think she's pretty great, too);

the "Thankful for . . ." tree we're adding to daily at our house, and the fact that Jemma's contributions so far (here, at school, and at Sunday School) to this and similar projects have been cats, colors, and my carseat.

Read Elsewhere: Odd Girl Out

2011-11-15T13:27:00.000-05:00

"Girls describe their social communities as worlds in which unresolved conflicts hang like leaking gas in the air, creating a treacherous emotional terrain in which discord is rarely voiced and yet may explode silently with the slightest spark. For many, if not most, girls, every day can be unpredictable. Alliances shift with whispers under cover of girlish intimacy and play. Many girls will not tell each other why they are sad or angry. Instead, they will employ small armies of mediators, usually willing friends who are uncomfortably caught in the middle or eager for moments of intimacy that result from lending a hand to someone in trouble.

Alternative aggressions, and the nonassertive behavior they suggest, are as embedded in the daily lives of girls as makeup, boys, and media. A girl learns early on that to voice conflict directly with another girl may result in many others ganging up against her. She learns to channel feelings of hurt and anger to avoid their human instigator, internalizing feelings or sharing them with others. She learns to store away unresolved conflicts with the precision of a bookkeeper, building a stockpile that increasingly crowds her emotional landscape and social choices. She learns to connect with conflict through the discord of others, participating in group acts of aggression where individual ones have been forbidden."

"Our culture has made truth telling and anger, indeed, everything that is "not nice," feel very wrong to girls. We have been taught that the right answer is the one that hurts the least. As Brown and Gilligan have shown us, it is critical that girls learn how to expose their most uncomfortable feelings to 'the air and the light of relationship.' For at the core of us are natural feelings of anger and desire, the messy, uncomfortable truths that make us, our relationships, our friends and lovers, imperfect.

Denying those feelings locks us away from ourselves and so from authentic relationships with others. Denying those feelings doesn't make them go away but somewhere else, leaving the people around us unsure of what we mean, who we are, and how we feel."

-from the book Odd Girl Out by Rachel Simmons

Of Waffles and Pillow Fights

2011-11-13T21:19:00.000-05:00

We headed out of town at the break of dawn on Friday morning to do a fun mini-vacation with the girls to the east side of our fair state. We made it to Ann Arbor in time to have breakfast at our old favorite Saturday morning spot, Cafe Zola. It was just as cozy, delicious, slow, and overpriced as it ever was, and the girls loved it. Jemma couldn't believe her life that we let her order the Belgian waffle a la Gabus, which comes drizzled with Nutella and raspberry syrup and also comes topped with two scoops of ice cream. FOR BREAKFAST.

I would have been happy to sit there for hours, our table covered with fresh-squeezed orange juice, cappuccino, and a mess of crayons, but there were adventures to be had.

We bundled up and wandered around downtown, then spent over half an hour in Peaceable Kingdom, where we knew the girls would love the enormous table of little tiny treasures and toys. We let them each choose one. Then we hiked to campus, with the girls peppering us with questions the whole time: What was that building? Did we eat at that restaurant? How much farther? Was Annie in my tummy when we lived in that apartment? How much farther?

We passed the alley where we always used to see Michael Jackson's doppelganger dancing to Beat It and we ventured inside to marvel at the graffiti until Annie pointed out that it smelled like pee just as Jemma bent down to pick up a penny off the ground. GAH. One gallon of hand sanitizer later, we were in the middle of campus, checking out fountains and bell towers and the dental school, which Jason was eager to show them and about which they couldn't have cared less.

In the afternoon, we grabbed lunch downtown Birmingham and spent the rest of the afternoon at Cranbrook Science Institute. We had the place to ourselves, and the girls ran from exhibit to exhibit, learning about viruses and evolution, water molecules and pyrite, T. rex and woodland trees.

We checked into our hotel and promptly went swimming, which Annie professes to have been her favorite part of the whole trip, and then we dried off and went to an old colleague's home for dinner. Though we've added two children, one dog, and seven years to our respective lives since we last spent time together, it was as though no time had passed at all. The girls played happily with an old stash of Legos, the adults drank wine and ate shrimp and grits, and we floated off into the night so grateful for time spent laughing with old friends.

There was blamming of hotel doors into the wee hours of the night and the world's most uncomfortable pull-out couch shared with a very wiggly Jemma. On the bright side, though, there was a pillow fight

and happy snuggling the next morning

and then we went our separate ways yesterday, Jason to bring the girls back home after one last swim and some playing at a park, me to meet up with good girlfriends for a lucky day of IKEA and shopping, a night of dinner in the lounge at Toast and too much wine while watching Oprah Lifeclass and telling stories, a Sunday of leisurely breakfast and Trader Joe's and driving back home to a little blond girl waiting for me on my front lawn this afternoon. Just like always, it's good to go away, and it's good to come back again.

Girls After My Own Heart

2011-11-10T20:50:00.000-05:00

Annie gets to check out a library book from school each week and at least half the time, she chooses a cookbook. Last week, she chose some sort of Betty Crocker Fancy Party Treats and begged and pestered until I took her to the store for the necessary ingredients to make chocolate cupcakes in teacups with marshmallow frosting.

We finally made them on Sunday night and ate the last ones after dinner today, which was appropriate, because they looked like nothing so much as little cups of hot chocolate with insane amounts of sprinkles, and guess what it did today?

IT SNOWED.

So we switched up our tradition of having hot cocoa on the first day of snow and had hot-cocoa-looking-cupcakes-in-mugs instead. I don't think they minded.

Jemma had the day off from school yesterday because of conferences, so she spent a chunk of the morning doing this

(and then spent the afternoon being a total whiner, just so we don't paint too cheerful a picture here). Annie, on the other had, had the day off from school today, so we ran errands together and snuck in a stop at the bookstore, where I gave in happily to her request to purchase her own copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It joins an ever-growing pile by the side of her bed, of which I am more than a little proud.

But maybe not as proud as when I catch this happening just before bedtime at night

or this

on a Saturday afternoon.

After we'd been to Michael's this morning, and the bookstore and the grocery store, we had almost half an hour before we had to pick Jemma up from school. And since we were juuuuuust across the parking lot from my new favorite store, I told Annie we were going to go in. "It's beautiful," I said. "You'll love it!"

Annie disagreed. After learning that they didn't sell "things for kids," she insisted she was staying in the car. I dragged her in, and we spent fifteen solid minutes oohing and ahhing over the obscene variety of gorgeous drawer pulls and the floor-to-ceiling display of embroidered kitchen towels. We smelled every candle, touched every soft sweater, tried on sample Lolla hand cream, and chose imaginary Christmas gifts for nieces and grandmas and ourselves. There is a gorgeous bed in the middle of the store, and just before we left, Annie looked at me and said, "I want to sleep in that bed and live in this store forever."

Things Jemma Says: Little Words

2011-11-09T09:31:00.000-05:00

"Patt-er-en" for pattern
"Unrase" for erase, and "unraser" for eraser
"three-year-older" when describing last year's pre-school

You Got the Poison, I Got the Remedy

2011-11-08T23:06:00.000-05:00

I still - still! - don't feel completely well, in spite of it being nearly two weeks since I began feeling yucky and in spite of the antibiotic my nice husband magically procured for me once the yuck began manifesting itself as a sinus headache and congestion so profound it made my teeth hurt. But my strategy since about last Thursday has been to basically ignore being sick. To focus instead on the good. To take some ibuprofen and go out to dinner, take some ibuprofen and go to hot yoga, take some ibuprofen and go to the fancy school auction where my husband gets up on stage with the live entertainment when they sing Dead or Alive because he just can't help himself. To think about how it might be amusing to make a pile of used Kleenex from just a single hour of morning nose-blowing and take a picture of it. To take other pictures instead, mostly with my phone or my mental camera, of Annie's hair in a requested side-ponytail, of the cupcakes we made that were truly cakes in cups, of Jemma and I wearing rain boots to run into school and vote for a friend who won a great victory tonight, of the new, much-beloved Anthropologie that is only minutes from my house, of the dinner out at Grove with friends, of the stellar report we received at Annie's parent-teacher conference (the word "spitfire" was used zero times!), of the textbook fall day we had on Sunday and the giant piles of leaves into which the girls jumped as I raked the yard in the sixty-five degree sunshine, of yet another brand-new pint of Jeni's Salty Caramel ice cream in my freezer right now.

Pessimist's Litany

2011-11-02T22:14:00.000-04:00

Today began, as certain Wednesdays apparently must, with Annie having a meltdown at 7:00 a.m. sharp because Jason was refusing to let cheese bunnies be a breakfast option. Just before he headed out the door for the day, he informed me that we'd overdrawn the checking account due to my hasty bill-paying without letting him know to transfer more money from account A to account B. "Bye!" he yelled as he pulled the door behind him, and there I stood, my wet hair in a towel turban on my head, two children crying about breakfast and one lunch to pack. My throat was sore for the seventh morning in a row and I clutched a snotty Kleenex in one hand.

I fed the girls and dressed the girls and brushed the girls' teeth. Jemma and I walked Annie to school and then Jemma (who woke up at 5:30 a.m. for the day, claiming, "I didn't even sleep at all last night!") began to whine to be carried back home. When I refused and tried to hold her hand instead, she stomped away and sat down defiantly on the sidewalk, trying to muster up the worst insult she could think of. "You're dummy!" she yelled. "You're . . . super, SUPER DUMMY!" I had to turn my face away so she wouldn't see me laugh, though I wasn't laughing much ten minutes later when the grumpiness hadn't subsided.

After preschool drop-off, I forced myself to go to yoga for the first time in a week even though the NyQuil hadn't totally worn off and I very much wanted to take a nap. The man two mats down from me was a grunter, and made loud grunty noises during every single exhale. Zen moment, ruined. Throat, still sore.

Jemma went to play at a friend's this afternoon. My head was pounding so I made some tea and decided to lie down in lieu of showering (priorities!), but between the phone ringing and the shop-vac and the leaf-blowers going on all around our house, it wasn't very restful.

I spent over an hour making a dinner that nobody in our family especially liked, including me, and about which Jemma actually pounded her fists into the table, so fierce was her anger at homemade spaetzle with squash, and at the fact that Jason and I are not inclined to peel her apples for her anymore.

I am not saying there weren't bits of good today (new Modern Family! sunshine and sixty-two degrees! hugs and snuggles from Elsa! Annie proclaiming at the dinner table that the Star-Spangled Banner is her "favorite country song" (get it?), finally half an hour to talk with my husband for the first time this week), but my throat is still sore.

Things Jemma Says: Lay/Lie Edition

2011-11-01T16:11:00.000-04:00

Jemma: "Why do they call it the living room?"
Me: "What should we call it?"
Jemma: "The laying room, because we lay down on the couch."

Things Jemma Says: Halloween Edition

2011-10-31T20:46:00.000-04:00

To her preschool teacher at school today: "I can't wait for today's tonight!"

One of my very favorite things about raising our kids in this house is the simple but real connection and community we have with our neighbors. I love our traditions, annual Halloweenie Roast included. I can't think of a much more quintessential Halloween than joining all our friends and neighbors to eat and drink together in costume, forcing the kids to pose for one massive, chaotic picture, and then spreading out to trick-or-treat in our neighborhood until it gets dark and the candy runs out. I think my pink pegasus unicorn and my raven-haired witch had a great Halloween, today's tonight.

Good Things, October 2011

2011-10-28T08:42:00.000-04:00

Taking in ArtPrize on a sunny Saturday;

See our reflections in the glass?

HeMan, Master of the Universe!

weekend away on Mackinac;

tennis girls;

riding a pony at the preschool fun night;

a Brownie eating her candy after the homecoming parade;

one last day at the beach;

playing with Google Earth while waiting for lunch at Crane's;

a leaf pile;

drawing while waiting for Annie's piano lesson to end;

cozy Thursday night dinner at Big Bob's;

an hour of gleeful jumping on an inflatable pillow at Robinette's with MC;

being silly with rain gear;

bundled up for a home football game;

petting and feeding the baby goats at an apple orchard;

hiking the Saugatuck dunes before dinner at our favorite restaurant on a cloudy Sunday;

Jemma, aka "a magical Pegasus unicorn."

Cause and Effect, Halloween Style

2011-10-25T13:51:00.000-04:00

Sunday morning, in the car on the way to church, in a conversation prompted by Jason's story of his Saturday night attendance at The Haunt, a local scary attraction:

Annie: "And R is going to be a vampire for Halloween. Were there vampires there?"
Jason: "Yes! There was a bridge you had to cross that made you feel dizzy, and people dressed like monsters who kept jumping out and trying to scare you. There was a guy with a chainsaw who pretended to run towards you! Do you know what happens if a vampire bites you?"
Annie: "No, what?"
Jason: "You become a vampire, too!"
Annie and Jemma, eyes huge in backseat: "Wow . . ."
Jason: "And do you know what happens if a vampire bat bites you?"
Me, interrupting: "Do you want to sleep tonight, Jason, or . . . ?"
Annie and Jemma, eyes huge in backseat.

*****

Last night, midnight, Jason and I fast asleep in our bedroom:

Jemma, standing one inch from my face: "Mom."
Me, bolting upright, flailing in the covers: "Aghhhhhh!"
Jemma: " sniffle . . . sniffle . . ."
Me: "Jemma! What? What's wrong?"
Jemma: "Do bats eat us?" Begins to wail hysterically, sobs for fifteen minutes while I rock her in her room and explain cheerfully that bats eat mosquitoes and are so helpful!
Me: Unable to get back to sleep for over an hour, due to the elevated heart rate from being scared awake.
Jason: Sleeping soundly, snoring.

Snapshot, List-Style

2011-10-21T16:54:00.000-04:00

On the radio, per the girls' request:

"That Billy Joel song about the pants"
"No Need to Argue" by The Cranberries
"Toy Soldiers" by Martika
"Heaven is a Place on Earth" by Belinda Carlisle
"Rollin' in the Deep" by Adele

In the car, because I am messy:

two children's tennis rackets
an empty Coke can
my new favorite Stila lipglass, Raisin
one carseat, one booster
yoga mat
one gallon of sand
two clipboards with plain white paper
an entire carton of crayons, scattered on the floor in the backseat
library books, possibly overdue

On Annie's nightstand:

Little House on the Prairie
her portable stereo, with Totally 80's karaoke for kids! inside
wadded Kleenex
spare pairs of earrings, yet to be worn
a pink and white lamp
photos of her as a baby
pieces of her doop that fall off
a ponytail holder
a journal
sunscreen

In the fridge:

leftover chicken pot pie
Bell's Cherry Stout (my favorite!)
bacon
cider
sage
kale, rotting in vegetable drawer
Greek yogurt
leftover part of a can of pumpkin puree

A Note, A Hat

2011-10-18T09:00:00.000-04:00

I'm driving her home from catechism and she's looking out the window dreamily, crunching the Smarties her teacher gave her for correctly answering questions, looking for stars.

"Somewhere in the world right now -" she says, and then she stops, self-conscious, censoring her words already.

"Somewhere in the world, what?" I ask.

I see her smile sheepishly in the rearview mirror. She is quiet. Then: "Somewhere in the world right now, a baby is being born."

"You're right! Probably lots of babies, actually."

"Like, 55 million babies?"

"Well, probably not quite that many."

"Like, ten?"

"Probably more than ten. Somewhere between ten and 55 million babies." Later, after she'd gone to bed, I looked it up. I wrote a note for her lunch today: 250 babies are born every minute in the world. I am so glad that YOU were born! Love, Mom

I'm walking her to school this morning and we're arguing about whether or not she should wear a hat. "It's 39 degrees," I say, "and I'm wearing a hat. It's cold!" She is holding the offending hat in her hand.

"Moooom. It's only fall. You always make me take a hat when it's not even winter. Then the other kids in line laugh at me."

"Who would laugh at someone else because they had a hat when it was cold?" I say, my feeble attempt at fighting second-grade peer pressure. "That's silly."

"Mom. I'm not wearing it."

"Okay. You don't have to wear it if you don't want to. But just have it in your backpack in case you want it at recess." She rolls her eyes and shoves it in her backpack before we even reach the school, mortified at the thought that anyone might see her with a hat. It's probably in there now, right next to her lunch with the note, little pieces of my love she takes with her as she counts by tens in Spanish and makes a fantasy story web and reads graphs and chases boys on the playground.

Channelling Andy Rooney

2011-10-17T20:24:00.001-04:00

A list of things making me grumpy:

Jemma's ear infection/general virus/pinkeye (?), which forced a visit to the pediatrician's early-morning walk-in clinic, which was full even though we got there 25 minutes before it ended, which caused us to need an appointment later in the morning, which caused Jemma to miss her class field trip today. Sub-grumpiness related to this grumpiness:

- Jemma has not yet realized that she missed the super-duper-fun field trip to the pumpkin

patch, but she surely will realize it when she returns to school tomorrow.

- the prescription she is now on for said ear infection pretty much guarantees she'll have

diarrhea for the next 7-10 days.

The post-race intestinal distress and general body unhappiness brought on by yesterday's successful (2:01) half-marathon. At least I felt good during the run . . . ?
The fact that, this many years into teaching and modeling table manners, my oldest daughter still wipes her messy hands on her clothes while eating and my youngest daughter still wipes her mouth on her sleeve. When, I ask, WHEN will they start actually using the napkin that sits next to their plate without being reminded?
The word "fav" being used all over the internet. "Fav" is not a word, people. Remember that thing you learned in first grade called "the magic e"? You know, where putting an "e" on the end of a word makes the preceding vowel "say its name"? If you want it to rhyme with "Dave," you need to spell it "fave." Like, you know, "rave," "gave," "save," "concave," . . . do I need to go on?
The phrase "You're young!" being thrown out a lot by people of an older generation towards people in my generation, often as an excuse for their own lack of energy. Since I am still "young," relatively speaking, I'll have to take their word for it that I won't be feeling quite as spry as I do now come thirty years or so. I mean, I definitely can't do some of the things I did in college, like pull all-nighters or stay out past 2:00 a.m. several nights in a row and still function the next day. So I get that energy levels naturally dwindle, etc. But I take issue with "You're young!" being used to somewhat devalue the effort that those of us who are still "young" put into life. Yes, we're young-ish, but things still take work and effort and we're still tired as hell sometimes at the end of the day, too. Being young might make it more possible, or easiER, but it's not MAGIC. It's not, "Oh, I'm young, so juggling all these things in my life is effortless!" It's, "I suppose this is easier than it would be if I tried to do it in thirty years, but it is still hard work."
Spending money recently on the most boring things possible: fixing my car's muffler/exhaust system, having the sewer lines roto-rooted, putting in new windows upstairs in our house. BORING.

Read Elsewhere: Story

2011-10-17T18:48:00.000-04:00

"The artistic sensibility in the nation became wholly self-referential - the story of my life is what matters, not the well-crafted and distilled art of memoir, nor the carefully compiled story (and analysis) of the lives (and problems ) of others - but the story of what I am feeling, right now, right this minute. And so, I became part of the problem, I suppose . . . We have always loved stories, I think, it's just that we, as a nation and perhaps as a human race, recently stopped loving stories about the other; we began to love stories only about ourselves. We love stories in which we are the protagonists in search of truth. I do not want to judge this. But my feeling is that we can cope with the increasing smallness, rapidness, and indifference of our changing, violent world only by seeing ourselves as noble characters caught in the struggle. We are all, as Turgenev so presciently said over a century ago, either Hamlet or Quixotes, and we must be these kinds of people if we are to endure.

We see ourselves in a struggle of epic, or at least interesting, magnitude, and so we go about documenting it ourselves, not waiting for some future historian, anthropologist, or novelist to find our tale and tell it for us. YouTube, MySpace, blogs - all of these things are ways for us to make ourselves protagonists on a very crowded, violent, and unjust stage." - Dean Bakopoulos, My American Unhappiness

*****

"The story my kids will tell someday depends on me. I am writing their book, and I want their childhood chapters full of traditions and stories and memories of the comforts of home." - Kelle Hampton

*****

"When our story is told, and it will be told in song and fable and interpretive dance and puppet show, people will weep with joy and, through sobs, say, "Today we have witnessed love. How can our lives not be bettered by this?" - quote in a friend's back entry.

Things Annie Says: Don't Even Try Editon

2011-10-16T20:32:00.000-04:00

"There are a thousand million things I'd rather do than math flashcards."

*****

Me: "Annie, for the love, stop romping all around the house at bedtime!"
Annie: "Mom. Don't just make up words."

The Seven-Year Itch

2011-10-14T15:49:00.000-04:00

Seven years ago, I had a one-month old. I was simultaneously in that state of foggy bliss where every squeak from my child made my heart sing, and feeling like my life had been run over by a freight truck. It was the beginning of my insomnia; even when the baby slept, I couldn't sleep, so turned-upside-down was my world, which revolved around nursing, cleaning spit-up off of myself, changing blow-out diapers, and holding a baby while she slept. Annie would not, initially, sleep without being held, and so my days were a circle between the kitchen, the nursery, the bathroom, and the couch, where I watched every single episode of Dawson's Creek in syndication on TBS and Oprah every afternoon. I'd go out for short walks with the stroller whenever possible and meet the one friend I had made in South Haven at the coffee shop or the tiny indoor pool. I cried with happiness; I cried because I thought I'd never get my life back.

I was right. The days after we added Jemma to our family were all the more chaotic: she was colicky; Annie, despite my guilty encouragement, never wanted to watch television and so would sneak around the house doing who-knows-what while I nursed the baby; there was always a pile of dishes on the kitchen counter and a pile of laundry in every basket; and I went a whole year without really watching a single thing on television, so highly did I prioritize getting to sleep at the earliest moment possible. Eventually I carved out time for running and began to blog about our life and sneak in time for dates and friends here and there, but other than that, the bulk of my life has been all kids, all the time.

Those frantic days have tapered off, much to my surprise. I think I thought they would never end. These days, I can do things like meet a friend for a spontaneous lunch on a Tuesday afternoon, roam Target and get stuck in the throw pillow aisle for half an hour, work out AND shower (both!) before going to school pick-up. These days, everywhere I go - book club, the gym, the school playground, running, talking on the phone - it's the same conversation between those of us who have been nothing else but somebody's mommy for several years in a row: What will we do now?

The littlest ones are not napping anymore or wearing diapers or needing us quite so much; they're spending large chunks of the day at school or friends' or some type of sporting event. There is still plenty of mothering to be done, for sure: keeping up with the constant influx of papers from school; managing the increasingly-busy calendar; cooking dinner and doing laundry and helping with homework and shuttling from place to place. That work is not going to end for a long time.

But what has shifted is the fact that it's starting to feel like 99% of my energy goes into support work. It's the work that nobody notices because they've come to expect it. The lunch will be packed and inside the backpack, the birthday present will be purchased and wrapped with a card to be signed, the meal will be made and ready to eat in the exact 20-minute segment we have available for dinner, the clothes will be clean and in drawers, the calendar will be full of events, the tickets will have been purchased, the tap shoes will be in the bag with the snack and the water bottle . . . the work is never-ending, and it's sort of thankless, too. The only time somebody really notices is on those rare occasions when - God forbid - the work didn't get done. "Mom!" they say indignantly. "You forgot my ________!" or "Mom! Where is my ________??!" The work is invisible, except when you're being noticed for not doing it.

Sometimes I think they notice. I got Annie her Halloween costume this week and put it on her bed for her to find when she came home from school. She lit up when she saw it, immediately put it on, and cried, "You're the best mom ever!" And I know that it's not important that they notice, that it's my job - my lucky, lucky job - to do small things with great love, to build our family's memories, to tell our story, to make our house a home. But sometimes I see myself as if from outside of my own body, looking down and watching like a ghost: There I am, getting out the peanut butter. There I am, settling yet another squabble about tape. There I am, running a stained shirt under cold water.

Seven years into full-time, at-home parenting, the gig is almost up. It hasn't been a perfect fit. I've said before and I'll say again, I'm always jealous of the person who just knows that a certain mode of parenting is right for them. Some women are made to be at home with their kids, some are always certain that their families are better served by their working outside the home, and some families don't have the luxury of that choice and are making the best of whatever situation they're in. I've always been uneasy about my decision to be at home, and now I'm equally uneasy thinking about what comes next.

I don't have any illusions that my role as mom is ending. If anything, I think the next ten years are going to be even more challenging than the last seven have been, and I know there won't be easy answers. But as more time opens up in my day-to-day and the other people in my family forge their own new paths into bright adventures, I don't think it is wrong of me to want more than to be left behind doing the work of a glorified personal assistant. I don't think it is wrong to want to do more than get out the peanut butter.

"The future stretches out in front of me. I see myself making more mistakes, not fewer. Holding on when I should be letting go. Letting go when I should be holding on. The first nine years were the easy ones - when I could, for the most part, protect him from everything; when I was always in the next room when he took a shower, ready to run in and rinse the soap out of his eyes." - Melanie Gideon

Read Elsewhere: The Slippery Year

2011-10-12T22:09:00.000-04:00

"There's this strange phenomenon. An hour after you've put your children to sleep, the ways in which you have wronged them sprawl out on your chest, all two hundred and fifty pounds of them, and suck the breath right out of you. It works the same way with gratitude. An hour after your family has left the house, you love them with a piercing intensity that was nowhere to be found when you were scraping egg yolk off their breakfast dishes. Your hope is to one day feel this way about them when they're in the room. This is a pretty lofty goal."

" . . . I am one of six and a half billion people currently taking their turn at being alive on this planet. One of billions trying to make sense of their lives, their heartbreaks, their regrets, their greatest loves, their bad knees, and their beloved children sitting in front of them who will one day be part of the billions who have come before and have long since been forgotten."

-from The Slippery Year: A Meditation on Happily Ever After by Melanie Gideon

Her Name Means Jewel

2011-10-12T11:35:00.000-04:00

She is almost five but she still willingly begins and ends each day in my arms. At bedtime, after we read a book or three, she slumps contentedly into me and turns her head so her cheek rests on my left shoulder. I smell her hair and scratch her back before I tuck her in. Mornings, she opens her door slowly and comes out sheepishly, squinting at the light in the kitchen where the rest of us are already having breakfast. I scoop her up and we snuggle. Her warm body is not yet ready to talk. She wants oatmeal or yogurt or fomps.

She jumps out of the car to go to school after she kisses me on the nose. She talks to me the whole ride home and all through lunch. She wants a cheese quesadilla - in the microwave! not the stove! - for lunch almost every day. She hums while she draws. She sings songs to herself while she builds with Legos or pages through books. She has learned to do the monkey bars all the way across without stopping and to ride her sister's Razor and to play Doe-a-dear on the piano. She can write all her letters and is working on her numbers and wants to know what two plus three is, please. She brushes her teeth and washes her hands and cuts her waffle all by herself. She gets dressed every morning and comes out, proud, to smile at herself in the full-length mirror in the hall.

Her bedroom is a mess of puzzles and pop beads. There is an old Easter hat turned upside down, filled with a blanket, made into a nest for a stuffed animal in the middle of the floor. It can not be moved. There is a stack of books in her bed and a swaddled Bitty Baby, too, whose clothes must be changed from time to time. She finds treasures on the ground everywhere we go, says, "I'm not picking up garbage, Mom," just before she hands me a penny, a pop-can top, a fall leaf, a cicada shell, an orange bead, a shell, a rock, a dragonfly wing. The treasures must be kept in her bedroom, too.

She spills almost every time she eats. She calls out "'Night! Love you! See ya in the mornin!" when we're closing her door at night. She scowls when she doesn't get her way, says an emphatic "Phooey!" when she doesn't hear the answer she was hoping for. She loves her sister, her Dumbo, her purple water bottle, her friends at school, her crayons, her bed.

Tradition: October Day at the Beach

2011-10-09T21:00:00.000-04:00

It's been the most beautiful, sunny, warm stretch of perfect fall days that I can remember, and we've been cramming as much into them as possible. Friday found me walking in the homecoming parade with Annie's Brownie troop, candy being thrown everywhere and a marching band leading us down the street, before going to a tailgate party with friends and the football game under the stars.

Yesterday morning I woke up early to run nine miles (my last long training run before the half next weekend). The rest of the house was still sleeping when I left, but they were watching Saturday morning cartoons on the couch when I came back, and the day already promised to be hot and sunny. So, even though we had an annual date with our neighborhood photographer for family photos in the early evening, we packed up the wagon and journeyed to Crane's to pick apples and then spent the rest of the afternoon at one of our favorite Lake Michigan beaches. There's typically only one weekend each October when the weather feels like a last gasp of summer, and we couldn't let it pass by without continuing our annual tradition.

Sharing cherry pie after lunch.

Apple-picking!

The girls insisted on wearing their bathing suits even though the water was too cold for swimming.

A girl after my own heart . . .

art by Stephanie

art by Annie

art by Jemma

art by Jason

We paid for it later, of course, with tears and meltdowns just before (and during!!) family pictures. Our photographer insists (based on her quick peeks at her camera screen) that the pictures will turn out great, but if they do, when you see them, imagine how "happy" we all were to be yanked back from the beach and hurried home to have hair curled and sandy bodies stuffed into jeans and wool sweaters only to stand, sweating, in a buggy field. The girls expressed their happiness by refusing to hold hands or even so much as touch one another, letting their tongues loll fatly out of their mouths, lying down right in the grass between takes, and actually shoving one another and pinching each other's arms when they thought nobody was looking.

When you see them, know what there was true happiness that day. It's just that it was more on the beach after apple-picking, and not as much in a field at sunset . . .

Read Elsewhere: Constant Tending

2011-10-05T16:08:00.002-04:00

"Some of the great things that come in life—garden fruits, cardiovascular health, money, lasting love, osso bucco, good wine, faith, deep friendship—come very slowly, over time. And these great things don’t just arrive, and stay. There are good things that only stay good with careful attention, daily attention; they require a constant tending. Constant tending is really hard to do." - Heather Sellers

I Wish

2011-10-04T06:55:00.003-04:00

The following is inspired by Just Write at The Extraordinary Ordinary and a passage from the book The Gift of an Ordinary Day by Katrina Kenison, which I had to go through today before returning it to the library so that I could un-fold all the corners I'd folded down.

I don't wish for the old house back, not really, yet in a way, I wish for everything back that ever was, everything that once seemed like forever and yet has vanished. I wish for my own childhood bedroom with its mauve-and-mint-green heart-patterned wallpaper, the white-painted furniture, the west-facing window out of which I watched the sunset through the open screen in the summer. I wish for Sunday after-church coffees at my grandparents' house and summer sleepovers in their downstairs bedrooms, in a house with gold-flecked Formica and a tub with sticky rubber bath mats inside. I wish for a chance to relive an afternoon with my brother, when we shot hoops in the driveway and rode our bikes right down the middle of the street until my mom yelled out the front door that dinner was ready. I wish for a sleepover with my best friends, sneaking out to toilet-paper a neighbor's house and coming back to eat microwave popcorn and watch The Princess Bride in the basement, for the day we went to see Wayne's World in the theatre, for our Christmas gift exchanges and summer meetings in fields and before-school pancake breakfasts and track meets. I wish for my college dorm room with its view of the cafeteria, the futon on which I fell asleep reading uncountable pages of literature and philosophy, the white board hanging on our door next to a Nike ad I ripped out of a magazine, the buzz in the hallway at 10:00 p.m. on a Friday night, all hairspray and music and getting ready to go out. I wish for my husband as he was the first time I saw him, the first time he asked me to dinner at my dorm room door, the feeling of falling in love outside of The Alpen Rose restaurant on a cool fall night. I wish for the first apartment we ever shared, in a generic complex across from north campus, the kitchen where I taught myself how to cook, the tiny TV/VCR combination that sat on our bedroom dresser. I wish for my two daughters at every age they've ever been, but especially on the days they were born, for the sleepy moments in the middle of the night, for their happy, squeaky little voices and their chubby little cheeks filling the house. I wish for Christmas mornings and blowing out birthday candles and first soccer games and all the hundreds of ordinary mornings with breakfast dishes to clear and coats to zip up and half-finished mugs of coffee growing cold on the counter.

Back

2011-10-03T20:45:00.000-04:00

from a quick weekend getaway with just my cute husband that included eating fudge, running the circumference of the island, a magical horse-drawn carriage ride at sunset to a cozy dinner in the woods, plenty of sports-watching in bars, riding our bikes up steep hills, a hot tub, a nap, wandering, wine-drinking, and laughing our guts out more than once.

First Day of Fall

2011-09-21T19:10:00.000-04:00

:: crisp air, clouds mixed with sunshine, and a swift breeze for staying at the playground after school.

:: Jason talking to Jemma's preschool class about healthy teeth, with all the tangents and blurted-out stories and hilarious questions you'd expect.

:: a new Everyday Food, a new O Magazine, and an unscheduled night to sit on the front porch and page through.

:: dinner at Rose's, just me and my girls, and time to talk about reading groups, birds, I Spy, olive oil, multiplication, dance, piano, friends, and food with their curious little selves.

:: a new skirt from a sale rack.

:: girls giggling together over a Halloween catalog after dinner, and little wet heads reading Robert Munsch on the couch after baths.

:: Annie persistently practicing her first piano song with both hands playing different parts.

:: packing the very tired little girls off to bed extra-early, crossing fingers for a happier and more-rested household tomorrow morning, and looking forward to the Modern Family season premiere and the very last of the butter pecan ice cream in the freezer.

The Tenth One

2011-09-19T12:47:00.000-04:00

We were gathered around the kitchen island, each of our six hands holding a glass of red wine, ready to toast to our annual girls' weekend.

"To the weekend!" I said. "How many is this? Eight? Nine?"

"TEN!" said the group, and I literally could not believe it, though the notes we've jotted down don't lie, and they tell a story of a group of six college friends who gathered in Kentucky in the fall of 2001 to drink Bloody Marys at the horse races, sit in the hot tub, eat chess pie, and stay up way too late at night talking and laughing. The last one of us had just been married and we'd realized that, with no more weddings in our future, we'd have to travel to see each other for the sole purpose of being together.

Since then, we've stayed up way too late at night annually in lots of cities and states. We've white-water rafted in West Virginia, shopped in Chicago, spent the day at the beach, hiked in the mountains and the dunes, gone to the spa, eaten fabulous meals out and cooked giant meals in, eaten our weight in addictive cereal mixes, and told a million and one stories. We're about to welcome the sixteenth child of this group into the world (Annie was the first) and have spent hours talking about baby names, nursing, discipline, laundry, childbirth, time-outs, sleep deprivation, pregnancy, and raising kids. (I think it's fair to say a good portion of our weekends are currently spent talking about The Children: How Cute and Hilarious They Are, and The Children: How They Are Trying to Kill Us.) And then, because the point of the weekend is partially about escaping the family-focused world we live in every day, we talk about work, exercise, food, wine, make-up, fashion trends, design, books, television, travel, Target, marriage, memories, magazines, how to keep our hair from looking gray, how to get dinner on the table, how to make the big decisions in life.

This year, we kept it pretty low-key. We stayed at Connie's cottage, took a long walk down the beach on Saturday morning, shopped in Pentwater for the afternoon, and ate a big, late dinner on Saturday night. There was goat cheese and cherry ice cream, pumpkin butter cake, dill havarti, marcona almonds, bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin, salad, guacamole, wine, lambic, coffee, tarts, focaccia, granola, olives, apples, and - of course - the addictive cereal mix that is a requirement every year. There was one particularly good story told by Gina, one baby name to be discussed, one round of talking about people we used to know in college and Facebook-stalking them. There was lunch at Brewery Vivant and bookstore browsing and pedicures before heading up north, and there were hugs and promises before going our separate ways yesterday.

There was one spectacular sunset.

There were a lot of fruit flies trying to swim in our wine.

There was a candlelit table with six chairs around it.

And there are six people going about their days today - driving carpool, making phone calls, cooking dinner, seeing patients, kissing children, writing checks - who are just a bit better for the time they spent at this, the tenth weekend.

Seven

2011-09-15T22:33:00.000-04:00

Dear Annie,

You turned seven on Sunday, though (as usual) we celebrated your birthday all weekend. On Friday, donuts and cider to school and then the football game with grandparents while Daddy and I went out with friends. On Saturday, you did the thing you've been waiting to do for well over a year now: you got your ears pierced. Jemma, Grandma, Mimi and I were all gathered around to watch you pick out your blue-green studs with such poise and heft yourself up into the chair with calm confidence. I snapped one last photo of you as you were:

Then you squeezed the heck out of my hands while the earrings went in simultaneously - pop! - and you didn't flinch or cry at all, just smiled shyly when you saw your newly-pierced ears in the mirror.

Afterwards we all went to get pedicures together for a special girls' afternoon. You and Jemma charmed all the women in the salon. You chose polish specifically to match your earrings and then were delighted when you got tiny flowers painted on every single toe.

Then, presents in the front yard

and blowing out seven candles on your chocolate cheesecake.

The next morning - the morning that you were officially, finally seven - you looked like this:

And just like that, you're another year older.

I've read a few less-than-encouraging books lately about the challenges of raising happy, healthy girls in our current culture. Instead of coming away feeling educated and empowered, I've closed those books feeling overwhelmed and confused. Don't tell girls they're pretty! goes one theory, or they'll base their entire self-worth on their appearance. And then, in another book, Don't tell kids they're smart! studies show, or they'll actually give up more easily and perform less well in school. In another chapter: Don't bother emphasizing honesty; it doesn't have any impact on how honest your kids will grow up to be, and even the "best" kids routinely lie to their parents. For a week or two there, I felt like nothing was safe to say, like there was just no way we hadn't already messed things up forever.

Then school started and your birthday happened and life became one big flurry of activity, and I was reminded again of what a resilient, competent, persistent, compassionate, and - yes - pretty and smart person you are. Sometimes I see you do something - take the monkey bars every-other-one, smash a tennis ball across the net, run around the track, play a new piano song perfectly, solve a tough math problem - and I can hardly believe it is you. You can make your own peanut-butter-and-nutella sandwiches, switch the CD in your player from Suzuki piano to the Justin Bieber your sister gave you for your birthday, sign your name in cursive, do a cartwheel, swim real strokes, twirl spaghetti on a fork, and read yourself to sleep at night. You are a patient teacher to Jemma, telling her how to spell words she wants to write, reading to her on the hallway floor, chasing down frogs and bugs as a team. You are a big kid, and we are so proud of you.

I am going to forget about those books and forget about censoring myself around you. I'm going to think instead of something better I read in another book, The Gift of An Ordinary Day:

"The hardest part of being a parent may be learning to live with the fact that there are so many things that we simply can't control, so much of the journey that is not our doing at all, but rather the work of the gods, the unfolding of destiny, fate. We give birth to our children, we love and cherish them, but we don't form or own them, any more than we can own the flowers blooming at our doorstep or the land upon which we build our homes and invest our dreams. We may tend the garden for a while, take our brief turn upon the land, nurture the children delivered into our arms, but in truth we possess none of these things, nor can we write any life story but our own."

So even as I see you blossoming into the big kid you are becoming, I'm remembering that it's you who is doing the hard work of growing up. And because it's not due to me saying the right things or the wrong things, I'm going to go ahead and keep telling you that you're beautiful, reminding you that you're smart, and telling you to be honest, parenting books be damned. Looking back at the seven years we've had together and looking forward to the treacherous, wild, messy territory that is still uncharted, I want to say, too, that you're a great kid and I'm so lucky to be your mom. I tell you that every day. I'm so glad you were born.

Real Elsewhere: Maddening

2011-09-14T11:02:00.000-04:00

"Raising a child is easily the most maddening thing I've ever done. It is, of course, also the most rewarding thing I've ever done. The latter gets a lot of attention - frozen in time and assembled neatly in picture albums, scrapbooks, family stories - while the former, nearly as significant in the big, day-to-day scheme of things, is the subject of only ominous public service announcements and scolding looks from strangers, your parents, and your mate. Everybody gets mad at their kids; nobody likes to talk about it."

-Greg Knauss' essay Peas and Domestic Tranquility in the anthology Things I Learned About My Dad

Mega 80's

2011-09-13T09:18:00.000-04:00

There is a band that comes to town every other month or so and plays at a local venue. They are called Mega 80's, and for $12.50 and a bunch of blue eyeshadow, you can be transported back in time twenty-five years while the (hot) lead singer wears an Atari t-shirt and sings a billion songs in a row without stopping. Somehow you know the words to all of them without even thinking. Want to see them? Here's how to do it right:

Before you go, have your friend Katie come over to do your eye make-up. Be jealous of her vintage plastic charm necklace. Wear clothes you found without any trouble at Forever 21. Feel alarmed that most of the 15-year-old girls shopping at the store were buying the clothes to wear and not for an 80's party. Bust out the side ponytail.

Photo by Annie

At the pre-party, pose for photos with your husband and try not to giggle at his eyeliner or his jeans, which are women's size 7/8 and the envy of many other party guests.

The back view? Even better.

Thank your hosts, who are a mismatched pair but authentic nonetheless: a Madonna from her brown-hair period and a homage to an 80's football coach, complete with mullet wig and "Coach Gary" ironed on the back of the shirt.

Take one last photo before hopping in the cab downtown . . .

. . . and then dance your butt off for four hours straight.

Please note Jason's mouth.

Have a stealth hangover the next day, the kind where your body bings! awake at 6:00 a.m. for no good reason, feels tired but okay, and then falls apart slowly over the next several hours until your stomach is mad, your head is pounding, and you are sweating and struggling to remain vertical in the deli line after you walked to the grocery store.

Start planning when you will do it again, now that you have the outfit and all, because it was the most fun you've had in months.

(Almost) Ten Years Later

2011-09-07T20:57:00.000-04:00

We're coming up on the ten year anniversary of 9/11 and I've seen some writing here and there about it this week - reflections, analysis, the kinds of "I remember where I was" stories that I always thought would only belong to the generation who remembered the assassination of JFK. (I have also seen some hideous, tacky, "commemorative" t-shirts and what I suppose is meant to be "collectible" gear at Michael's, of all places, and all I could do was groan inwardly and think, Seinfeld-esque, Oh, we're doing this, now?)

Anyway. I remember where I was. It was my birthday. I was at school, teaching second grade. I lined my kids up, eighteen of them, on the steps outside my classroom and marched them down the many hallways and stairs in the beautiful historic building to their music class, where they got out their recorders and sat obediently on risers before the teacher began. Then I marched myself back up the many hallways and stairs, probably wearing one of the three pairs of Dansko clogs I wore pretty much every day, and when I walked past Debbie's classroom, it was empty (her kids were probably at art or theatre) and she stood still in the middle of it, staring at the television where the tower was coming down.

The rest of the day was a blur. We tried to keep the kids from knowing that anything was amiss. We left our lunch tables to sneak into a classroom and watch the news. We cried and tried to hide it. We fielded phone calls and emails from frantic parents, some of whom showed up in the classroom to take their kids home. We had an emergency staff meeting the moment the last child had gone home at the end of the day, our head of school unable to speak without his voice cracking and the school psychologist prepping us on what to say and do when the kids returned: what to tell them, how much to say, how many details to include, what to watch for.

What I had then - ten years ago - was a classroom full of second-graders. What I have now is a second-grader right here in my house, asleep in her bed even now as the sky turns gold and I sit on the front stoop typing. When I read these 9/11 memoirs and remembrances, I can't help but think how much has changed for me in those intervening ten years. As surreal as those horrible and uncertain days seem in retrospect, it is even more surreal to me that the me who did not even think to hope yet for children of my own in 2001 would have two little girls ten years later, and would live in a completely unknown house in a completely different city. I would have a baby on my birthday, on the anniversary of the event.

In the aftermath of the attacks, I remember hearing the sentiment that this was a world (so dark, so evil) into which it might be foolish to bring children. I never agreed with that. I remember thinking that there was nothing new under the sun, that there would always be darkness and death and heartbreak but also love and triumph and goodness. It was never a question of bringing them into the world, but now that they are here, it is a question of how to tell them about the darkness. It is a question of how to explain the death. It is a question of how much to shield them from the heartbreak. It is a question of how to raise them to love, triumph, and contribute to the good.

*****

Jason's uncle passed away early this morning. I have written before about how relatively untouched our lives have been by tragedy and loss, and even this loss is not really ours. We are deeply sad, of course, because it is always sad to lose someone who you love and whom you have known for such a long time, but the loss really belongs to Jason's aunt and his cousins, to his uncle's mother and his uncle's many siblings and friends and sisters-in-law and neighbors who saw him regularly. Which is why I was surprised to find myself tearing up this morning when Jason mouthed the news to me while he was still on the phone with his dad and again tonight at dinner when I explained his death to the girls. They got quiet over their chicken rice soup. We've talked all along about how sick he had been and about the battle he'd been fighting and especially lately about how sad Mimi and his family was, but I am not sure we had explicitly told them how it was going to end, once we both knew. I explained that Jason and I would be going to the funeral and asked them if they had any questions.

"What time was it when he died?" Annie asked.

"I think it was really early in the morning, almost the middle of the night," I said. I tried to say another sentence about how the nurses gave him special medicine so he wouldn't hurt and how his family was all around him but I had to stop and sit there, my eyes filling with tears.

"So, his heart just stopped working, then?" Annie continued.

I nodded and shrugged, not even totally sure what to tell her, or how much detail to give.

Jemma piped up. "When people are really, really, really, really, really, really old, they die."

I nodded again. "Yep, everybody eventually dies."

"Except for God. And Jesus. But they're the same person so, huh. And Mary already died, but she had Jesus, so she had the magic tummy, right?" Jemma's big eyes looked into mine and I smiled. This is what people talk about, I thought, when they talk about the wisdom of babes.

Tonight I am remembering a man who took us out to dinner in Ann Arbor when we were much younger and poorer; a man who came to our first house in South Haven and demolished the old rickety deck before helping us build a new one; the man who loved to be outdoors and bonded with Jason over good food and drink; the man who will not get to see his grandchildren, with their big eyes and their many questions and their little hearts that moms everywhere draw and re-draw a slippery line around every day, trying to both shield them from the darkness while also teaching them how to live among it and be the light, shocked anew that the children they used to teach so confidently have been replaced with the ones who have so much to teach them.

First Day of School

2011-09-06T22:42:00.000-04:00

I have more to say - about this former second grade teacher now having an actual second-grader, about how proud I am of these two curious, smart, happy, silly, energetic, kind, creative girls, about what I'm going to do with my Twelve! Hours! a Week! when they're both at school from now on - but today there is only time for these snapshots of the way they were on the morning of September 6, 2011: on our front steps, tummies full of oatmeal, wearing matching skirts and hugging each other good-bye on such an exciting day. I didn't cry, but even while I was pressing down on the shutter it felt a little like an out-of-body experience. I have kids, I thought. They go to school.

Sleepy-headed Ninny

2011-09-04T22:24:00.000-04:00

It's what we call Jemma when she does this after four straight days of beach time with neighbors, running, biking, kite-flying, hiking, boogie-boarding, hitting the whiffle ball with a plastic bat a trillion times, reading, coloring in bed with a contraband pen and getting ink on the sheets, shopping for her sister's birthday present, watching Olivia cartoons, whistling, scooting, giggling about the word "nipple," eating peaches and apples and homemade macaroni and cheese, and living it up for one last summer weekend:

Good Things, August 2011

2011-08-31T22:45:00.000-04:00

Summer has almost lost its luster for me, frankly. Siblings are fighting (we're going on week four of no scheduled activities, and it's a bit much), friends and family are struggling, time is short but to-do lists are long, and when I noticed it was the last day of August and I hadn't done this month's traditional Good Things post, I didn't much feel like doing it, anyway. But going on the theory that it's during challenging times that we need to search out the good things the most, I forced myself to scroll back through this month's photos, prompting the obvious realization that even in the midst of this - in the midst of anything, really - there are always, always good things.

(I'm not saying there won't be a more, shall we say, realistic post tomorrow or the next day.)

So, for now:

Fancy hair after Fairy Camp. (Yes, Fairy Camp is an actual Thing.)

Jemma wearing her fairy crown at the last day's tea.

Ruth Reichl's peach cobbler.

Finding teency, tiny toads at Mimi's . . .

. . . and learning about habitat, predator/prey relationships, and disappointment when setting them free.

A cozy dinner with just my big girl one night.

This expression on Annie's face while playing math games.

Jemma wearing my bath robe in the middle of the summer for no reason.

An impossibly gorgeous day at the beach.

Sisters at the annual block party . . .

. . . and best friends being silly in front of the fire truck . . .

. . . and some of the neighborhood gang posing for the yearly photo.

Daily piano practice, tutu optional.

Dancing along to sister's music.

Watching the band practice on the football field.

Post-sprinkler peek-a-boo.

Matching towels.

Annie's creation of bathing suits for her bears, made out of (you guessed it) her bathing suit.

Spending a day where this river meets the lake.

Playing Ms. Pac Man at Art's Tavern.

Sun-kissed girl drinking root beer.

This spectacular stretch of Lake Michigan beach (Sturgeon Bay at Wilderness State Park).

Cousins smashed together in a carved-wood chair at Leg's Inn,

drinking Shirley Temples on the lawn that overlooks the lake,

(or maybe chocolate milk),

linking arms walking back to the car,

and - miracle of miracles! - all four of them looking at the camera at once!

Appropriate For a Pure Michigan Commercial

2011-08-28T21:37:00.000-04:00

The Best Moments

2011-08-27T18:50:00.000-04:00

. . . Of the last few days include:

-climbing to the very top of the highest dune in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park - with Annie, doing a monkey scramble right next to me - and then jumping our way back down to the water.

- watching the waves in Sturgeon Bay this afternoon, chasing my nieces on the shore, skipping stones, and swimming out deep with Annie.

- sitting on the deck late last night and drinking wine under the stars with Jason.

- a tough but gorgeous 8-mile run this morning along the bay.

- a picnic at North Bar Lake, complete with prosciutto and tomato sandwiches, lemon veggie orzo salad, fruit, shrimp, cookies, and Brewery Vivant beer.

- knowing in my brain that the back-to-school rush is going to be in full swing in one short week but feeling summer in my soul for a few more days.

Read Elsewhere: The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, by Wendy Mogel

2011-08-24T14:10:00.000-04:00

"In my work with parents I encounter two general schools of parenting media philosophy: the What the Hell, Everybody Else Is Doing It School and the School of Total Abstinence. Both are a form of cheating. The first cheats your children out of protection against grim, overly sexual or violent images that bathe them with experiences they can't put into perspective. The second school cheats them out of fun and fellowship because so much of grade school social currency is based on knowing what is going on in the media."

"Being present in the moment is perhaps more difficult for us today than at any other time in history. Ironically, we use a myriad of so-called "timesaving" technological gadgets such as laptops and cell phones, but they do nothing to help us sanctify time because they, themselves, demand so much of our attention. Moreover . . . we have a tendency to ruminate about our collective past and fret about the future, which adds to our difficulty in living in the moment. We therefore have to make a conscious effort to focus on the present."

"The hidden secret in the community of abundance in which I live is anguish. Unsure how to find grace and security in the complex world we've inherited, we try to fill up the spaces in our children's lives with stuff: birthday entertainments, lessons, rooms full of toys and equipment, tutors and therapists. But material pleasures can't buy peace of mind, and all the excess leads to more anxiety - parents fear that their children will not be able to sustain this rarefied lifestyle and will fall off the mountain the parents have built for them."

"I meet many parents who are trying so hard to be perfect parents, to make everything just right for their children, that they're draining away their pleasure in parenting. They're too exhausted and too unconsciously resentful to enjoy the amazing show of childhood. For these parents, every minute needs to count."

Go. Read. This. Book!

Inspired

2011-08-21T21:28:00.000-04:00

:: by the quote my friend Amy shared recently, something she saw on a sign in the half-marathon she ran recently that went: "There will come a day when you can no longer do this. Today is not that day." I wish I could give a hearty cheer for Week Two of my own half-marathon training, but all I can do after Friday morning's seven-miler is stretch my left calf muscle and hope for better things this weekend. And keep on running, being grateful that today I can still do this.

:: by the website Tastespotting, both to cook more and to push up the timeline for getting myself a dSLR camera, so that I, too, can take food photos like those someday.

:: by our impromptu family day at the beach on Friday, the one where we had planned to spend the day re-stocking at Costco and paying bills and running errands and washing the cars and mowing the lawn, but where we looked at the weather forecast and decided instead to pack up the wagon and head to Holland, where the water was 75, the air was 85, and we ate lunch and played tag and did underwater handstands and took long walks right up until we decided it was time to go out to dinner. Which we did, with wet spots showing through our cover-ups and sand crusted to our ankles, at an outside table at New Holland Brewery, happy that our foursome can be together this way, Ichabod and Shirley Temples, burgers and cheese plate, pickles and olives, sunshine on our damp hair.

:: by this quote from Kelle Hampton's blog (are you reading her? You should be reading her.):

"My mom says she has this dream every once in a while. She dreams that we're little again, and she's back in the days of rocking us, reading stories, holding our hands as we walk across streets to parks and picnics and little adventures. She says that when she wakes up, for one second she thinks we're still little and in her house, and that when she realizes we're not, there is a moment of heartache--this paralyzing reminder that those days are gone, and we have moved on.

I think about this a lot.

I know my mom is happy--that she has supported our independence and explorations away from home. I know that I will be happy, supporting their independence and explorations from home. But I also know that what I have right now--two little people who comfortably remain in the security of this sliver of time where they are ours--is fleeting. During adventures like yesterday where one is slung to my hip and one is holding my hand, guiding me toward where she wants to go, and little friends and friends' mamas are circled around us, I think to myself, "I'm going to miss this."

Poof: They're Gone

2011-08-17T22:03:00.000-04:00

While Annie was playing at a friend's house today, Jemma and I walked to the grocery store. On the way there, we passed a house and I noticed a car in the driveway, its back tailgate open, full of bins of books, duffel bags, boxes, and a pillow. Wow, I thought, someone is bringing a ton of books on their family vacation, and then I realized, no, it was probably a teenager getting ready to head off to college for the fall.

On our way back from the store, we passed the house again, and this time as we approached it, I could see the family of four, whom I have never met, standing in a tight circle in their front yard, arms around one another's shoulders, heads bent in the middle. I have never met them before, and I couldn't hear what they were doing - talking, praying, not making any sound at all - but I am quite sure that I witnessed the very moment a family sent their oldest child off to college.

I was glad to have sunglasses on, because I immediately started crying. I am crying, actually, right now, just thinking about it again.

Then we came home and made cake-pops-disastrously-turned-into-cake-balls and rocked a block party full of water balloons and fire trucks and dear friends, which is the only remedy I know for those tears.

Beaches, Peaches, Magic

2011-08-16T20:51:00.000-04:00

"And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it."
-Roald Dahl

It's! Almost! Fall! Mode

2011-08-15T08:59:00.000-04:00

We have now reached the point in the summer where there are no more scheduled events for the girls - no camps, no sleepovers, no tennis lessons - except for Annie's thirty-minute-a-week piano lesson. The weather's been cool lately, and we've been sleeping with the windows gloriously open, and I heard a goose honking overhead the minute I woke up yesterday morning.

All this to say that I've gone fully into my It's! Almost! Fall! mode, which annually involves:

1. Me, getting all seize-the-day about taking the girls to the beach, or on a spontaneous outing, or doing a million picnics, or making it to just one more park concert, or letting them get ice cream almost any time they ask.

2. Me, getting all inspired to cook and bake up a storm with the last of summer's goodness and the early tastes of fall.

Related to item the first, I am planning to take the girls on a mystery trip tomorrow to pick peaches at Crane's and then on to play at the South Haven beach, where they love the play equipment almost as much as the beach itself. I might sneak in a stop at Salt of the Earth just for their seedy salt bread, too.

Related to item the second, I made chicken stew and biscuits for dinner last night, and right this minute I have blueberry muffins in the oven with five minutes to go. Last night, Jason nicely took the girls to the park while I made dinner and drank a Founder's porter in peace, but the blueberry muffins, I made this morning with absolutely zero interruptions from my children. They have been playing/setting up a tea party/having and feeding babies/cleaning up Jemma's room/getting each other dressed/brushing their teeth this whole time.

It still sort of shocks me when this happens, when I am able to accomplish something like a normal person without an infant around my neck or a toddler running in to attach to my leg every seven seconds. Yesterday, I was noticing that when the three of us run an errand and go to get back in the car, everyone just goes to their own separate door, opens it, gets in, shuts the door, and buckles themselves in. I remember so clearly when it was "Go to Annie's side while lugging the infant car seat and holding Annie's hand, open her door, get her into her seat, shut the door, go to Jemma's side, put the infant carrier in its base, shut the door, go back around to Annie's door, open it, buckle her in, shut her door, get in the car and heft the diaper bag into the passenger seat." Sometimes I am still surprised at what my life looks like right now.

Also related to item the second, am I the only one who finds herself at the grocery store or the farmers' market, tossing things in the cart, all inspired and full of plans for specific meals and getting certain items specifically for those meals, and then gets home and makes maybe one of those meals the very same day and maybe one more the next day, and then finds herself looking at, say, a carton of buttermilk or a bunch of parsley and thinking, what is this for? And crapping out on the meals for the rest of the week and just ordering Rose's Express pizza family meal?

Maybe this is just my problem. I attempted to combat it yesterday. When I got in the car in the grocery store parking lot after paying for my $87 worth of groceries, I wrote out all my meal ideas for said groceries on the back of the shopping list I had just taken into the store. Smart, right?

Then I came home, unloaded the groceries, and threw the list away, forgetting only fifteen minutes later that I had written on the back of it. So! At least there was chicken stew with biscuits!

Just Us Big Girls

2011-08-13T21:13:00.000-04:00

Jemma spent the night at my parents' last night for her summer sleepover and Jason was off doing manly things involving mountain bikes, jerky, speakers, and beer at the cabin, so it was just me and Annie. After the others left, I told her she got to be in charge of the day and her eyes lit up.

First, we went to the farmers' market, where she chose a peacock feather for herself and one for Jemma. We bought peaches and raspberries and tomatoes, too.

She declared it Opposite Day, meaning that first we needed to eat ice cream at Jersey Junction, and then we needed to eat lunch. So we did. We sat outside and spoiled our lunch with ice cream and it was fabulous. After lunch, she wanted to "be cozy," so we climbed into my bed, Annie with her Boxcar Children book and me with my books, and we read for an hour or so in companionable silence.

Next, Annie declared that we go to the pool, so we did. There was hardly anyone else there but luckily she knew one little girls from school and I talked with a friend while her son zoomed into the water and taunted me adorably with his peanut butter crackers.

She wanted risotto for dinner, so I made that and I sliced a farmers' market tomato with some fresh mozzarella and basil from our windowbox. Sarah called to invite Annie down to watch a movie in jammies with Lucy, so the little girls snuggled with popcorn in the basement while Sarah and I drank lambic in her adirondack chairs. Later, she fell asleep while I scratched her back.

It was pouring this morning when we woke up. We made peanut butter toast and had more raspberries while I drank coffee and looked at the IKEA catalog and Annie perused morning cartoons. I went running while she made up a dance routine with Lucy. Later, we went to Target, where she counted out all her "spend" money to buy her very first pair of real earrings, tucked away in their pink box for the next month. She asked me if I cried when I got my ears pierced. She asked to buy new basil soap. She chose Annie's Mac & Cheese, pumpkin granola bars, and new school clothes. She still fits into some 5T Osh Kosh, just barely, and I am savoring one more season of that cuteness.

We went to the library to return books and check out new movies for a cozy movie night. She asked me what my favorite song is. She asked me how I learned to cook. She wondered what Jemma was doing. We played statues. We did math flashcards. We read Pippi Longstocking, and Jemma came home, and everyone went to bed.

I hope she remembers. I think she will.

He Remembers Every Word Jon Bon Jovi Ever Sang, Though

2011-08-11T22:37:00.000-04:00

The scene: Couch, living room, late summer night in August
The players: Jason, listening to music on iPad; Stephanie, reading on laptop

Stephanie: Huh. That's interesting.
Jason: What?
Stephanie: NPR just reported on a study that shows that babies can be pre-disposed to like certain, specific foods based on the flavors their moms ate during pregnancy.
Jason: Yeah . . . so.
Stephanie: Well, maybe that explains why Jemma is so picky.
Jason: . . .
Stephanie: Do you remember how I was when I was pregnant with Jemma? How I only ate yogurt and bagels?
Jason: . . .
Stephanie: Remember how I had constant explosive diarrhea and felt nauseated all day long for six months?
Jason: . . .
Stephanie, louder: Remember how I lost ten pounds?
Jason: I . . . ah . . .
Stephanie: Remember how I had to start drinking Ensure every day because the doctor was concerned about my weight loss?
Jason: I don't . . . remember anything about diarrhea . . .
Stephanie, loudly: Remember the time you were at work and I had to call my dad to drive down and be with Annie at the house because the explosive diarrhea was so violent that it actually caused me to begin having regular contractions when I was only twenty-some weeks pregnant??!!??
Jason: . . .
Stephanie: !!!
Jason: Heh. Well, it was five years ago.

In Concert

2011-08-11T21:32:00.000-04:00

www.davidchandlerphoto.com

Tuesday night, I tell her we're going to go to a concert in the park and she immediately runs to her room. Lipstick. Bracelet. Necklace. Clip-on earrings. Packs a purse. Probably would have painted her nails if there had been time.

We walk to the lake, spread our blanket on the grass, and she is gone - chasing friends, getting her face painted, dancing in front of the band, laughing. She is still six. Her ears are still un-pierced, this last month before her seventh birthday. She stands, looking, smiling, the sun and her sister just behind her.

*****

Wednesday night, I tell her I'm going to a concert with my friends and she immediately runs to my room. "What dress are you going to wear? What food are you making?" Blue maxi-dress. Figs. Goat cheese. Probably would have made caramels if there had been time.

I kiss her good-bye, drive to the gardens, plunk a chair down on the grass and I am there - drinking wine, people-watching, talking, listening to Sara Barielles sing, dancing under the stars, laughing. I am still thirty-three, this last month before my birthday. I sit, looking, smiling, the stars and the crickets just behind me.

The Number One Rule

2011-08-07T14:17:00.000-04:00

My parents were over for dinner one night last week. In the course of conversation about another family member, my mom remarked, "I mean, the number one rule of being a (her maiden name) is Take Care of Your Stuff!"

The minute she said it, it struck me that Take Care of Your Stuff really is the number one rule for that side of my family. I have never, ever, ever been to my grandparents' house and not seen every single item in its place. The lawn is always mowed, the bushes trimmed, the garden weeded and watered, the carpets vacuumed, the cars washed and waxed, the tools hanging in their proper places in the garage, the counters wiped clean, the mail sorted on the phone desk. The same thing is true at my parents' house, and at the houses of my aunts and uncles and extended family.

The same thing is not true here. I mean, we don't totally neglect our stuff, and there does come a point where the stuff does get taken care of, but it is not rule number one. It's probably not even rule number two or rule number thirteen. It's probably rule number thirty or so, and that's okay with me. We've actually tried not to accumulate too much stuff, because stuff needs to be cleaned and stored and waxed and vacuumed and sorted and wiped clean and watered and trimmed, and I don't get pride or joy from doing those things. I do them when they must be done, and I try to do them thoroughly, and I am for good-enough stuff-care. My family is possibly disappointed in me.

I've been thinking, though, about the unwritten rules we learn from our families, and about which rules we're following in our own home. Beyond the (failed) attempt to teach me to take care of stuff, my family of origin also had other unspoken rules I can see if I look:

Things - decisions, money, voting - are private.
Save your money.
When children grow up, their life is theirs to live.
Give the best of what you make away to others.
Be humble.
Work first, then play.
Everything in moderation.
Follow the rules.

Then I had some fun thinking about the unspoken rules that Jason received from his extended family:

Things - decisions, money, voting - are public and to be discussed.
Spend your money.
When children grow up, you still have influence over their lives.
Celebrate big.
Be proud of your family and tell everyone.
Follow traditions.
Play more.
Bend the rules.

I don't want to make it look like Jason and I grew up in polar opposite families, because we didn't: lots and lots of the rules we lived by are the same, and we were raised in many of the same ways. But it's fun and funny to look at how some of the messages we received were different, and it actually illuminates the few areas that can create conflict for us in our marriage.

Now I'm thinking about what an outside observer would guess our little family's Rule Number One is. I'm thinking, really, about what I would say it is, and I'm not sure. I thought about it while I was running the lake last night, and while I was driving home from spending the day with my mom, and while I was painting trim in the living room on Friday night.

Jason and the girls went up north for the weekend to fish with grandpa and dance polkas at The Polish Festival, and I like the distance that a little break gives me from our family of four. I'm able to see it more clearly from the outside, put it under glass and walk around it for a day or two, making notes, examining. I'm whipping out the calendar and planning our next few months, hunting down back-to-school supplies and clothes, dreaming up a few last summer adventures, and thinking about the unspoken rules I'm laying out for my family. I'm thinking about what I want Fall 2011 to be about for us. I'm reading this poster that hangs in my kitchen while I do the dishes and wondering: what's your Rule Number One?

Read Elsewhere: Ridiculous Fashion

2011-08-03T14:06:00.000-04:00

At the beach a few weeks ago, a friend and I were paging through some women's fashion magazines we'd scrounged up in the hopes that the children would be sufficiently busy with the sand that we might have ten minutes to sit in our chairs. (They were. We did.) And that right there is one of only two places that I enjoy paging through any kind of women's fashion magazine, the other location being at the salon. I have never subscribed to one, and even when I DO page through them with a friend at the beach, I'm mostly pointing to something on a page and saying, "What is THIS?"

So it was with great joy that I stumbled upon Temerity Jane's snort-inducing "Cosmo Cliff's Notes" late last night. The whole, many-thousand-word post is total awesomeness, but this part was my favorite:

I know I say this every month, but you guys. The fashion section. None of this is any good. None of it. You just can’t wear this stuff at all. No. You can’t. There’s no reason for it. There’s just no goddamn earthly reason for any of this. IT’S JUST EGREGIOUS.

Good Things, July 2011

2011-07-31T21:41:00.000-04:00

Water:

Sunshine:

Yumminess:

Read Elsewhere: Stuff

2011-07-28T16:16:00.000-04:00

"My brain does a serious push-pull when it comes to larger questions of how to be in the world. Specifically, stuff. There are things I want. I want a remodeled kitchen, with an extremely kick-ass stove. I want to put a skylight in our stairway. I want to make over the upstairs bathroom with an extremely expensive shower. I want lots of new shoes, an upgraded iPhone, new pots and pans, an Xbox with Kinect (embarrassing, but true), a few sessions of personal training. I want a long interesting vacation to a foreign country.

Then I start to freak out about the cost. And not just the cost as in our personal budget, but about whether remodeling the bathroom or buying an Xbox is more or less the same as kicking a poor person in the face. There are people in the world who will watch their children die of hunger, and I am thinking about dropping fifty bucks on an All-Clad saucepan? Really?

And sure, I could send fifty bucks to a hunger relief agency, and I do that periodically, although the charity budget has to be split several ways because everything matters!

It does not change the fact that I still want the saucepan."

-read (long ago, and remembered) on mimismartypants.

These Things Happened

2011-07-27T16:13:00.000-04:00

Annie has started taking piano lessons this summer, and she is supposed to practice every day. So far she really enjoys her lessons, her teacher, and noodling around carefully and happily on the keyboard upstairs for fifteen minutes every day - except when I am up there to hear her. Then, it is a totally different story. She plays the songs quickly and messily, and when I tell her to slow down and play well, she collapses in a pile on the keys and cries about how she's no good at the piano. Does she do this for Jason? No.

*****

The girls spent last night at my parents' house, both to do some fun activities (see a play, swim in the lake) and so that I could spend three hours at the allergist's office first thing this morning. (More on that later.) For this overnight, I forgot to pack 1. Annie's underwear, and 2. Jemma's bathing suit. It's just not summer around here if I don't forget to pack a bathing suit and/or underwear at least once!

*****

The reason I spent three hours at the allergist's office this morning was because I have had "seasonal allergies" ever since the minute I became pregnant with Jemma. (Thanks, pregnancy hormones!) In the last couple of years, however, "seasonal" has come to mean "sneezing my head off every single morning of the year and gouging my eyes out while trying to itch my ear canals," and I decided it was high time to do something about it, Jemma going on five years old this winter and all. So I got a recommendation, called the office, and made an appointment for what people like to call a "scratch test."

I've talked to enough people who have had this scratch test (or whose children have had this test) to have had a pretty solid idea going in about what would happen. I pictured wearing a gown, lying on my stomach on a table, and a getting a bunch of very minor pricks (scratches, if you will) to the skin on my back. And this morning, that did indeed happen - 38 pricks, to be specific. And it really did feel like a quick scratch, and it did not hurt, and it was No Big Deal.

But then.

THEN, there was a part two of the allergy test, which nobody has ever spoken of to me, and which should not be lumped in with the scratch test but should instead be called the "Insert a tiny needle full of allergen subcutaneously under the skin of your inner forearm and jiggle it around until a bubble of blood comes out" Test. IT DID NOT FEEL GOOD. I got to experience 13 jabs/jiggles on my right arm and five on my left, and now I have neat rows of red hives marked with ballpoint pen decorating my arms, because it turns out I am allergic to everything. The good news is that I did not pass out from the needles even though my blood pressure continues to be 98 over fifty-something on the regular.

*****

Jemma has a friend, MC, with whom she has semi-regular playdates. They usually play every other week or so, alternating houses, and Jemma has been there at least five times. I had this conversation at the pool yesterday afternoon with MC's mom.

MC's mom: Jemma, we'll have to figure out a day next week when you can come to our house and play.

Me: Jemma, that sounds fun, huh?

Jemma: Yeah, I've never even seen MC's house before!

*****

Jason noticed Annie carrying a dollar around the house the other day and asked her where she had gotten it. She told him that Jemma had promised to give her a dollar if she would both taste and smell Jemma's finger. She did.

Who They Are Right Now

2011-07-25T07:43:00.000-04:00

Right now:

:: they are both still sleeping.

:: Annie falls asleep listening to her Suzuki piano CD or reading a Magic School Bus book in bed most every night.

:: Jemma has progressed to being able to swim underwater half the length of the indoor pool at the gym.

:: their shoulders are a deep, smooth shade of brown, no matter how diligent I am about the sunscreen.

:: they still fill afternoons playing "dog," "baby," and "school."

:: I sometimes catch Jemma kissing her finger, then pressing her finger to the photo of herself and next-door neighbor J that's on our refrigerator. (I told his mom.)

:: they love picking the snap peas from the garden and eating them raw before we even come inside.

:: they want to learn about sea anemones, shapes, artists, germs, cooking shows, and music.

:: they can identify a U2 song on the radio within ten seconds, and refer to anything by James Taylor as "Sweet Baby James."

:: they spent a portion of last week's Whitecaps game learning about strikes, balls, and outs from their patient daddy.

:: they have each grown about two inches since Christmas.

:: they are still one another's very best friend.

Food, Glorious Food

2011-07-20T09:51:00.000-04:00

About that new food-writing gig:

Who: My friend Di, who always has a million good ideas along with the savvy to turn them into a reality. She was the first person to pay me to write things, and even though writing website copy for investment firms, bakeries, and dental offices has been great experience, I'm so happy to be writing about one of my true passions for her newest venture.

What: Just Vittles, a site that aims to be a resource for busy people of all walks of life who want "clean food for modern families" with a special emphasis on elimination diets, gluten- and allergy-free food, and healthy, organic, local eating.

When: I'll be posting every Tuesday and Friday for now, and maybe more starting this fall when my schedule is more consistent.

Where: Just Vittles just launched in Seattle and is going to launch in West Michigan this fall, but you can participate and engage with it wherever you live.

Why: Good question. That's what my most recent blog post is about, and I'd love for you to join in the conversation.

How: Register for Just Vittles (it's free!) or fan it on Facebook and see the updates in your feed daily.

A Day to Live in Infamy

2011-07-17T22:49:00.000-04:00

Today, after four-and-a-half years of being a practicing vegetarian (making exceptions only for McDonald's chicken nuggets), Jemma willingly and happily ate an entire hot dog. A Pronto Pup, to be exact. And I am as proud as someone who just got a new gig writing for a website whose tagline is "Clean food for modern families" can be.

On Being a Grown-Up

2011-07-17T22:35:00.000-04:00

I remember being around sixteen years old, thinking that the next ten years or so would almost completely determine the person I would become, feeling nearly overwhelmed by the Big Decisions I would need to make. I knew I'd have to choose a college, then choose a major, then choose a career. I knew I'd probably choose the person with whom I'd be spending the rest of my life, choosing a city in which to live, and choosing whether and when to have children. Then, I thought, all the Big Decisions would be made, and - voila! - I'd be a grown-up, aka A Person Who Has Made All the Big Decisions.

I've made all those decisions now (and am steadfastly happy with the choices I made) but it turns out, at thirty-three, there are still decisions - some big, some small - and daily I wish that I had become the grown-up who knew how to make them. I have no problem doing the hard thing when I know that it is right, but I do have a problem when it isn't clear what the right thing is. I've always known that one of my strengths and weaknesses is that I can argue both sides of an issue, which makes it hard to choose one path and stick to it confidently. The current crop of Life Your Best Life media (Oprah, Life Lists, a plethora of inspirational websites and magazines) inspires me to, well, craft a life that lives up to its potential, to abhor complacency, to figure out what the problem is and find a way to solve it, to innovate, to raise the bar. Trouble is, it's hard for me to know when I'm taking that too far. Shouldn't I at some point just be grateful for the life as it is, or should I constantly be using my energy to improve it? I CAN ARGUE BOTH SIDES.

We were at the beach today, which is really the only place to be when the dashboard weather looks like so:

and I was having a version of this conversation with a smart friend, who agreed that there is a fine line between wanting your life to be as ideal as possible and being the kind of person who always wants more, more, more. Then, on the way home in the car - after hours of swimming and beach baseball and juice boxes and Doritos and Pronto Pups and ice cream and just one more Pronto Pup - Annie was complaining about the heat. The air conditioning was going full blast, though it was taking a little while to cool the car down, and she couldn't stop talking about it. It was so hot! It was so uncomfortable! It was so hot that it required a low-grade whine to emanate from the backseat and mingle with the noise of The Princess and the Frog. At which point I heard my own voice share this bit of wisdom:

"You have a great, lucky life and you just had a super-fun day. Now stop finding the one small thing that nobody can help, and just be happy."

Even as it was coming out of my mouth, I knew it was advice I needed to hear myself. We came home, showered, put exhausted children to bed, and sat on the couch drinking a glass of red wine and talking about the never-ending decisions that are part and parcel of life as a grown-up, and I felt more sure that, no matter what we decide to do about this or that, I will be happy, because life is great and we just had a super-fun day.

"This is the thing: when you start to hit twenty-eight or thirty, everything starts to divide, and you can see very clearly two kinds of people: one one side, people who have used their twenties to learn and grow, to find God and themselves and their deep dreams, people who know what works and what doesn't, who have pushed through to become real live adults.

And then there's the other kind, who are hanging on to college, or to high school even, with all their might. They've stayed in jobs they hate because they're too scared to get another one. They've stayed with men or women who are good but not great because they don't want to be lonely. They mean to find a church, they mean to develop honest, intimate friendships, they mean to stop drinking like life is one big frat party. But they don't do those things, so they live in kind of an extended adolescence, no closer to adulthood than they were when they graduated college.

Don't be like that. Don't get stuck. Move, travel, take a class, take a risk. Walk away, try something new. There is a season for wildness and a season for settledness, and this is neither. This season is about becoming. Don't lose yourself at happy hour, but don't lose yourself on the corporate latter either.

Stop every once in a while to go out to coffee or climb in bed with your journal. Ask yourself some good questions like, Am I proud of the life I'm living? What have I tried this month? What have I learned about God this year? What parts of my childhood faith am I leaving behind, and what parts am I choosing to keep with me for this leg of the journey? Do the people I'm spending time with give me life, or make me feel small? Is there any brokenness in my life that's keeping me from moving forward? . . .

Now is your time. Become, believe, try. Walk closely with people you love, and with other people who believe that God is very good and life is a grand adventure. Don't spend time with people who make you feel like less than you are. Don't get stuck in the past, and don't try to fast-forward yourself into a future you haven't yet earned. Give today all the love and intensity and courage you can, and keep traveling honestly along life's path."

-Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet

Updates, Prepositional

2011-07-16T10:26:00.000-04:00

On my nightstand:

On my Pandora playlist: plenty of Amos Lee, The Wailin' Jennys, U2, Adele, Ingrid Michaelson, Sara Bareilles, and Rufus Wainwright.

On the calendar: piano lessons, tennis lessons, Safety Town, allergy testing, haircuts, beach days, grandparent overnights, tea parties, birthday parties, Whitecaps games, and not all that much unscheduled time, frankly.

On the court:

On my mind: food, lower-back pain, real estate, sibling rivalry, summer traditions, yoga, friendship, money, church, Being A Grownup.

On my plate:

On my head: sunglasses; air-dried, messy hair; straw hats.

Read Elsewhere: Pressure

2011-07-11T08:14:00.000-04:00

"There is, however, ample evidence that the more mainstream media girls consume, the more importance they place on being pretty and sexy. And a ream of studies shows that teenage girls and college students who hold conventional beliefs about femininity - especially those that emphasize beauty and pleasing behavior - are less ambitious and more likely to be depressed than their peers . . .

Meanwhile . . . girls repeatedly described a paralyzing pressure to be "perfect": not only to get straight As and be the student body president, editor of the newspaper, and captain of the swim team but also to be "kind and caring," please everyone, be very thin, and dress right." Rather than living the dream, then, those girls were straddling a contradiction: struggling to fulfill all the new expectations we have for them without letting go of the old ones. Instead of feeling greater latitude and choice in how to be female - which is what one would hope - they now feel they must not only "have it all" but be it all: Cinderella and Supergirl. Aggressive and agreeable. Smart and stunning . . .

In her brilliant book Enlightened Sexism, Susan Douglas refers to this as the bargain girls and women strike, the price of success, the way they unconsciously defuse the threat their progress poses to male dominance. 'We can excel in school, play sports, go to college, aspire to - and get - jobs previously reserved for men, be working mothers, and so forth. But in exchange we must obsess about our faces, weight, breast size, clothing brands, decorating, perfectly calibrated child-rearing, about pleasing men and being envied by other women.'"

-Peggy Orenstein, Cinderella Ate My Daughter

The Fourth of July: Traditions and Innovations

2011-07-07T23:05:00.000-04:00

"For instance: you realize that every summer we do things over and over we did the whole darn summer before?"

"Like what, Doug?"

"Like making dandelion wine, like buying new tennis shoes, like shooting off the first firecracker of the year, like making lemonade, like getting slivers in our feet . . . Every year the same things, same way, no difference. That's one half of summer, Tom."

"What's the other half?"

"Things we do for the first time ever."

-from Dandelion Wine, by Ray Bradbury

Certain things must happen each year for me to feel that it is truly the 4th of July, including but not limited to: swimming in Walloon Lake and zooming around on the boat at least once; eating brunch at Bay View Inn and taking cousin-pictures on the croquet lawn after; joining the throngs of red-white-and-blue bedecked parade-goers in Harbor Springs; getting Tom's Mom's cookies and lemonade to add to the picnic lunch we eat down by the water; wading in the always-freezing bay; getting balloons for the girls; sitting on the curb in the hot sun to watch the parade; getting squirted by the fire trucks as they bring up the end of the line of floats; watching the two sets of fireworks explode simultaneously over the bay late at night. And as it has been in years past, it was again this year.

And then there were the things that we did for the first time ever, like

Annie catching her first fish (a small-mouth bass) and eating it later that same day;

all the little girls (with a little help from the moms) making a dessert that they take turns choosing for the occasion;

spending a long, languid afternoon on the family porch with mojitos, ribs, and grocery-store fireworks while waiting for the big show to start;

taking Annie and Jemma tubing on our last afternoon there and watching as they held on for dear life and bounced around with glee;

letting all the cousins have a sleepover at Mimi's while the brothers and wives stayed in town for the night, eating and drinking our way until some people were blatantly asleep on the couch.

Both halves of this very wonderful holiday weekend = so, so good.

July, So Far

2011-07-03T22:54:00.000-04:00

My Saturday afternoon: dock, beer, book.

Hilly runs first thing in the morning, two days in a row.

Annie catching her first fish (a small-mouth bass), eating it later that same day.

Afternoon all-out water balloon fight with the cousins and the cousin-dog.

Sunday morning: church, all crammed together in one pew, fighting over the coloring books; brunch at Bay View Inn; photos on the lawn.

Baking Ina Garten's quintessential flag cake and eight chubby hands placing the raspberries Just So.

Walking down the path to the lake, just bathing suits and crocs.

Watching Jemma cast her line.

Dinner on the deck, late.

Baths in the lake with peppermint soap.

Fireworks outside the window as we go to sleep tonight.

Happiness (Hit Her)

2011-07-01T09:26:00.000-04:00

"Happiness, hit her
Like a train on a track
Coming towards her
Stuck, still no turning back"

-Florence + The Machine, Dog Days Are Over

Danced to this rousing anthem in the kitchen yesterday morning with the girls.

Jumped to it, really.

Felt deliriously tired and deliciously aware of the moment: little girls, pajamas, a summer morning, whole day ahead, followed by a whole weekend of sparklers and fireworks, parades and flag cake, lake and woods, family and food.

It's coming, no turning back, and sometimes it's exactly what I need when I feel depleted by vacuuming the floor or settling a squabble for the 45th time that day: Happiness, hitting me right in my kitchen.

Boom.

2011-06-27T09:00:00.000-04:00

Does a weekend get any better than

watching the girls on-stage (together) in their acting debuts at The Civic Theatre (so proud);

celebrating the performance at lunch with my parents downtown;

early-morning Wealthy Street Bakery chocolate croissants fueling all the girls in our family in the Reed's Lake Run (Jemma finishing 4th in the 50-yard dash and running in the 400, too; Annie doing the 400 AND the 800 for an even 3/4 mile, and me adding to my healthy food choices by sandwiching a 10K between croissants and coffee before, then a hot dog and TCBY after. At 10:30 in the morning. What?);

a quintessential June day at the beach with friends, ending with the four of us crashing the cottage for the night, ending with late-night hot-tubbing and then me somehow drawing the straw to sleep with the four big kids in the bunk room, wedged in the sandiest bed ever with Jemma;

starting Sunday morning with coffee in an Adirondack chair, my best friend, and the quiet of Lake Michigan while the guys took the kids out for breakfast;

wrapping the weekend up with a road trip with friends to see U2, which people have always told me is magical, iconic, spiritual, and amazing, which it was.

So, does a weekend get much better than that?

No, it does not. Though today, we are following with an encore of "Here, eat some Cheerios in front of as many morning cartoons as you want to watch, while I try to stay in this bed for as long as possible."

Read Elsewhere: Simple

2011-06-24T20:20:00.000-04:00

From Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson:

" . . . and while the lake lapped at their feet and the mountains absorbed their calls and the sky flung its blue parachute over their heads, he thought how wonderful it was that life was, after all, more simple than he had ever imagined."

Fight Club

2011-06-23T14:33:00.000-04:00

I haven't written much about our family trip to Sleeping Bear Dunes last weekend, and that's because it was sort of terrible. The first time we took the girls to one of our very favorite places on earth, we were filled with trepidation: Would they love it, too? Could we still eat at our favorite restaurant, still hike in the dunes, still waste hours throwing rocks into the clearest lake water? Would we all have a wonderful time, or would they ruin it for us?

This time around, we might have been a little too cocky. We stayed at the same little condo we rented last fall, only this time it was warmer and sunnier. We wanted to try some new things - new restaurants, new hikes, a new lake to explore, a new river to kayak - and we planned to meet up with a group of friends at their campground for a night of cooking over an open fire and traipsing through the woods.

We did all those things (and more), but the weekend left a sour taste in my mouth, and that's because of The Fighting. If you have very young children (younger than mine) and are up to your ears in dirty diapers, bottles, midnight feedings, infant carseat-lugging, and piles of baby-food-stained laundry, you might want to avert your eyes and scroll down to the pictures at the bottom of the post. Because here's the part where I'm going to do that super-annoying, a@@hole thing where I say, "If you think it's hard now, just wait. Just wait until the entire tenor of a weekend can be determined by the fact that your children will find things to fight over that you would never in a million years think that two people could fight over. They'll fight over who chooses the video for the car ride, over whether or not the other person is copying them, over who gets to sit next to Daddy at every single restaurant meal, over whose stone belongs to whom, over whose turn it is to use the camera, over where and how to build a fairy house, over sunglasses, over soap, over the flower petals they're using to make a suncatcher. JUST. WAIT."

The Fighting, to be clear, has been going on for months now, and usually I think it's a normal part of the sibling relationship. Usually it comes and goes in fits and phases, balanced out by long days and weeks of very little fighting at all. There is plenty of teamwork, plenty of giggling, plenty of sisterly love to balance the fighting when I look at it over the span of weeks or months. But since approximately the minute that Annie walked out the doors of her school for the last time, The Fighting has been almost non-stop. And here's where I berate myself for my foolish, foolish plan of scheduling NOTHING for the first full week of summer. We'll sleep in! I thought. We'll play games in our pajamas and walk to the coffee shop and go to the pool and the playground whenever we feel like it! We'll bake something, or have a lemonade stand, or take a bike ride, and we'll be happy and freewheeling and old-fashioned and it will really feel like summer. And then we'll go up north for a weekend family vacation!

But no. Instead, we have fought - because their fighting leads to my reaction, which leads (so far) to more fighting. I have tried a few different strategies to cope with The Fighting:

Ignoring. This is probably the one I should employ 99% of the time, but it is almost physically impossible for me to do it. I can do it for a little while, sure, but at a certain point the noise of the bickering amplifies magically in my brain until it is all I can hear, and I can't take it anymore. As I told my sister-in-law, it sucks out my soul. Not to be dramatic or anything.
Separating. This is my usual go-to, and the one that works the best, but is the most time-consuming and annoying to have to follow through on. I go all Love & Logic and say some version of "It sounds like the two of you aren't being kind to each other. Please go to your rooms and come out when you can be kind." At which point they go to their rooms for .2 seconds, come back out, and resume the behavior. Repeat to infinity. This strategy is also sometimes impossible to implement, like in the car, at a restaurant, or almost anywhere in public when I am by myself with the girls.
Yelling. This is the least effective choice and yet sometimes it cannot be helped. I can only ignore and/or separate so many times until I lose my patience and my mind, and even then I try really hard to make repeated requests in firmer, calmer voices to show that I mean business. But sometimes, driving down Lake Dr., having said, "Please keep your hands to yourself" seventeen times, a yell sneaks out. At which point the children are SHOCKED and ALARMED and INNOCENTLY WOUNDED and they say, pathetically, "Mom! Don't raise your voice at me like that!" and then go right back to The Fighting.

These are the things, then, that were happening last weekend in one of our favorite places on earth. At one point, I side-mouth-whispered to Jason, "She's being willfully insolent!" and he looked at me, amused, and said, "Who are you, Dr. Evil?" So at least we can still laugh at it, which is something, I guess. And this week has been better. The girls are in a theatre camp every morning this week, giving them something fun to do with other people and me some time to write and get things done around the house. But when I look at the (mostly happy) pictures of last weekend - of spoiling our lunch with shakes at LakerShakes, of floating on the Platte River in the sunshine, of hiking Pyramid Pointe, of Grocer's Daughter's Chocolate, of roasting dinner over the fire, of discovering North Bar Lake at sunset, of eating outside at Art's Tavern - I am reminded of something I read on All & Sundry years ago that has stuck with me.

"Somebody left me a comment once about how family photos are like looking at ducks in the water, how you only see part of what’s really there — all the furious paddling underneath is hidden. I love that, it’s so true, and it’s one of the reasons I love taking so many pictures. It helps me remember and focus on the good moments, and let the memories fade of the churn it took just to make it through the day."