Two Years, Two Months, Two Weeks: A Toddler’s Day

Posted on June 6, 2008 by Steph

The Wee Hours

June woke around midnight, got up on her knees in bed and started crying. I stumbled the few steps from our bed to hers, scooped her up and set her down on our bed next to Beth. I made sure she had her pacifier and offered her a drink of water before shuffling off to the bathroom. By the time I returned, she was nearly asleep again. At 1:30 she woke again. This time she was a bit more restless, rolling around and asking for her sippy repeatedly before she finally settled down and slept again.

This is how our nights go and have gone for so long that it took me a while to realize that June isn’t nursing at night any more. She appears to have night-weaned herself at least couple of weeks ago. I don’t know exactly when it happened because her night nursing has been sporadic for months so it wasn’t a sudden or obvious change. And I’m not getting any extra sleep as a result. Middle of the night requests for water and her “’fier” are just as frequent as ever.

I considered night-weaning June many times, but I always put it off because I was certain it would be a drawn-out and traumatic process. I also wasn’t sure it would help her sleep for longer periods because when I night-weaned Noah at eighteen months he continued to wake up just as often as he had been before. So, it wasn’t long and traumatic, but it hasn’t helped her sleep either, at least in the short run. It’s still a good thing, a necessary precursor to sleeping through the night…someday.

Morning

Beth and Noah left for work and school at 8:20 and by 9:00, June and I were out the door. We have an outing almost every weekday morning. It could be a trip to the library or music class, or a walk to the playground or around the neighborhood. This morning, though, I decided to stay home and mow the lawn. The grass was getting tall and the predicted high temperature for tomorrow is 98 degrees, so it seemed like a good idea to get at least part of the lawn mowed before the really hot and muggy weather sets in. June was happy to play in the yard until she discovered I had locked the gate between the side and back yard to keep her out of the wading pool while I mowed. She stood by the gate and cried, “But I need to go in the swim pool!” in increasingly desperate tones. Eventually she abandoned words all together and sobbed. I tried to calm her and had little success so I went back to mowing, deciding the sooner I finished the better.

By the time the front and side yards were mowed, June was calmer and the object of her desire had shifted to blowing bubbles on the porch. I glanced at the back yard, calculating how long it would take to clear it of toys and empty the pool (I didn’t want June in it unless I was within arm’s reach). I’d have to do all that before I could even begin to mow. I decided to leave the back for Beth. She’d probably be pleased and surprised I’d gotten any of the mowing done. I blew bubbles for June (she doesn’t have the hang of doing it herself yet). Then she wanted to swing, so I put her in the sky chair. I sang “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and “Clementine.” (For reasons I don’t fully understand, I have always sung my children songs about death while I push them on the swing.) June sang along, all smiles. She had traveled from despair to joy in a mere half hour. It’s not a long trip when you’re a little over two.

Afternoon

After Sesame Street, a bath, lunch and a nap, June began lobbying to go into the wading pool again. I meant to take her out there before Noah got home from school so she could have it to herself, but I kept trying to squeeze it in one more chore before we went outside. I folded a load of laundry, emptied the dishwasher and skimmed an article about the health benefits of green tea and printed it for Word Girl’s background files. Then, before I knew it, it was 3:15, time to wait for the school bus. I took both kids out to the pool together. There was the predictable splashing and laughing, but also a good bit of squabbling. When June wanted Noah to move she attempted to push him and had about as much success as you’d expect a 22 ½ pound person trying to shove one who weighs at least 55 pounds. She tackles him with gusto, as if she’s sure one of these days she will be able to take him. I have to admire her spunk, even as I strive to improve her manners.

June got out of the pool and commenced climbing up the incline of the slide. She’s a climbing fiend and loves to go up slides this way. Sometimes she turns around at the top and slides down. Other times, she will just climb down the ladder. She’s a strong girl and a stubborn one and she likes to do things her own way.

It’s partly that stubborn streak and partly the horrible time we had potty training Noah that makes us approach training June with such trepidation. June’s been telling us when she needs a change since she was eighteen months old (which is more than Noah did at two, or three, or even four). However, whenever I talked to her about using the potty “sometime soon,” she regarded me with incomprehension or skepticism, or she simply said, “No,” in a matter-of-fact tone.

Then yesterday as I was changing her and mechanically going through my spiel about how she’ll use the potty someday, she surprised me by saying. “June use potty. Sit on potty today.” Not one to let the window of opportunity slam shut, I waited until she’d had a dry diaper for a couple hours, then asked if she wanted to sit on the potty. She said yes and ran to the bathroom. I tried her on the child-sized seat that folds out of the toilet lid, but she was scared of sitting up there, so I fetched the potty from the basement. She didn’t like the feeling of sitting over a hole there either, so we compromised on a brief, bare-bottomed sit on the closed lid. She’s happy to sit on the potty this way and has done it several more times.

After Noah and June finished playing outside, she demonstrated her potty sitting for him. He was kind enough to cheer for her and she looked pleased. I’m not sure how to get her to sit on the potty with the lid open, but we have a trip planned to Target this weekend to look for Sesame Street underpants and reward stickers. I hope this will inspire her to take the next step.

Evening

There was a carnival at Noah’s school tonight, a fundraiser for the PTA. Our first stop was the dunk tank. While Noah waited in line for a chance to dunk Ms. C, his morning teacher, I bought pizza for everyone. Ms. C shook her fist at one of his classmates who’d dunked her, and pretended to be angry with her. Every time she went into the water, she splashed the watching, squealing crowd. Noah took his turn and failed to hit the target. The teacher handing out the balls told him his last throw was close, even though it wasn’t. We all went to sit on the curb and eat. I didn’t have a fork or knife to cut the pizza so I handed June a whole slice. It flopped in her hand as she tried to control it, but she finally found the right angle and she methodically ate all but a couple bites of the large slice, taking an occasional break to swig water from the liter bottle we were all sharing. She wanted nothing to do with her sippy.

When we’d finished, Beth took Noah to play some games and I took June to the smaller of the two bouncy castles. The kids inside looked older than June, but not by much, so I asked the attendant if it was okay for a two year old. She said it was fine if I was comfortable with it. I am working on being comfortable with June’s daredevil streak, her desire to climb higher and go down bigger slides than Noah did at her age. (I’m holding out on the big kid swings. They just don’t seem safe to me, so she’s only allowed in the bucket swings.) Of course, she does need limits. She fell off either the dining room table or a chair last month and bit all the way through her lower lip. Beth had to take her to the nighttime pediatric urgent care. Amazingly, she didn’t require any stitches, but this visit made a big impression. June still talks about it on an almost daily basis. Whenever she gets a bump or scrape she suggests we go to the doctor who will “help me feel better.”

Anyway, the bouncy castle was smaller than the one we have at home and the kids inside seemed pretty sedate. I was plenty comfortable. When it was her turn, June didn’t even bounce. She entertained herself by climbing in and out under the door flap until her time was up.

After she exited the bouncy castle, she dashed off to the playground. She climbed up the slide and slid down for a while. Then she spotted the monkey bars. She was particularly drawn to the triangular handles kids use to swing across the bars. She wanted me to lift her up so she could clasp one. I did. She wanted me to let go and let her dangle. I didn’t. Annoyed, she struggled to get free and when I lowered her to the ground, she took off running across the field. I caught up with her near the basketball courts where three groups of teenagers played three separate games. I thwarted June’s attempts to cross the courts without escort. I carried her, twisting and kicking, through the carnival games and finally found Beth watching Noah jump in the larger bouncy castle. My back ached. I set June down on the grass and Beth told her we’d be going home as soon as Noah got out.

“No!” she cried and sprinted off in the direction of the playground where we’d started. Some days are too good to relinquish when you’re two years, two months and two weeks old.

Sing, Sing a Song: A Week of Music

Posted on May 30, 2008 by Steph

Sing, sing a song
Sing out loud
Sing out strong
Sing of good things, not bad
Sing of happy, not sad.

Sing, sing a song
Make it simple
To last your whole life long
Don’t worry that it’s not good enough
for anyone else to hear
Just sing, sing a song.

From “Sing” by Joe Raposo, performed by the Carpenters
(http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/lyrics/singasong.htm)

The summer Noah was two, during a visit to Beth’s parents house, Andrea gave him her guitar to strum and he played it until his fingers bled. When we noticed and pulled him away, he screamed in frustration. Beth’s brother Johnny said we should tell this story to the journalists who would surely interview us when Noah was a famous musician. Knowing what we know now, I think he was probably having a tactile under-sensitive day, but it shows how sure we all were Noah would be a lifelong musician, and possibly an accomplished one.

Noah was passionate about music when he was two and three. He idolized Banjo Man, the children’s musician who plays at the Takoma Park Farmers’ Market. My mom bought Noah his CD when he was not quite two and almost immediately we had to institute a rule that he could only hear the Banjo Man CD three times a day. Noah called the ukulele he carried everywhere his “banjo.” We could not leave town (and sometimes not the house) without it and a few others instruments carefully selected from his ever-growing collection. The toy saxophone and the little accordion were long-time favorites. Whenever we visited relatives, Noah loved to give everyone an instrument and organize a parade through the house. He also enjoyed setting up his ukulele case as if he were a street musician and soliciting donations. We had to throw real money in the case; just gesturing as if we were throwing money was not good enough.

In those days, every Saturday night we would go to Savory and listen to Takoma Zone (http://takomazone.com/Index.asp?PA=0&XX=46&XX=48&XX=83). We’d stay for the whole Traditional/Bluegrass set and sometimes for a little of the Singer/Songwriter set. It wasn’t kids’ music, but Noah would cuddle up in my lap or dance in front of my chair for an hour or sometimes even two hours. I always looked forward to Saturday nights. I was teaching then and there was always work I could be doing at home, so to be away from the piles of papers to grade and lessons to plan, in a comfy chair with a snuggly toddler on my lap and a cup of coffee within reach was the most relaxing time in my week.

Noah was in a toddler music class then and when his teacher had trouble filling a session, she suggested we start him in pre-Suzuki lessons. He was two years and eight months old then, a little young even for Suzuki, but we decided to give it a try. At first it went well. Noah could pick out simple tunes as soon as he picked up the instrument. At a recital when he was three, he broke out into a variation of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” when he was supposed to be playing a single note. When he was three and a half, he insisted on dressing as a violin for Halloween. But his progress stalled almost from the beginning. He never seemed to get much better than he was when he started and he chafed under the strict discipline of the Suzuki method. He started complaining about lessons and never wanted to play the instrument unless we asked him too. So when he was four, we pulled him out of the lessons. I was thinking of it as a break, but he’s never gone back to playing, and he doesn’t play his other instruments much either. I wonder sometimes if music was just a passing fad for him, like so many others we’ve seen come and go, or if he had something truly special and we squelched it by pushing him too hard, too young.

I have been thinking a lot about all this recently because June is the age Noah was when his love of music started to blossom and this week in particular we’ve revisited a number of our old musical haunts. There is still a lot of music in our day-to- day lives. Noah sings morning, noon and night and June does, too. Right now, anything by Milkshake and the soundtrack to The Jungle Book are big on their hit parade. Beth says living in our house can be like living in a musical. Here’s what it sounded like this week.

Saturday Evening: Takoma Zone

We don’t go to Savory nearly as often as we used to, but we were lured by some new menu items (real fruit smoothies instead of the artificial ones they used to have and some new desserts). As we came into the restaurant one of the musicians greeted us and exclaimed over how both kids have grown. He couldn’t believe Noah was seven. It was a beautiful evening so they set up outside. I sat with June in my lap, swaying slightly and sipping my strawberry-banana smoothie. The musicians played “Arkansas Traveler,” especially for Noah. (It used to be one of his favorites, though he doesn’t remember). All was well until about twenty minutes in when Noah wanted to know when we could leave. Beth didn’t remember what time we’d come in and said after the song was over. I was disappointed. I thought a half an hour had seemed like a reasonable, pared-down goal, but I didn’t want to push my luck by insisting on the extra ten minutes once everyone was getting set to go.

I sulked a little on the way home and wondered if we should even bother going anymore. It doesn’t seem to give Noah the pleasure it used to and he just irritates me, insisting we leave when I want to stay. But then on Sunday he surprised me by asking if we could go again soon. I guess it’s worth another try. We just have to take it in small doses.

Sunday Morning: Banjo Man

We went to the co-op and the farmers’ market to buy plants and seeds for our garden, which has turned into something more elaborate than we originally planned. We kept thinking of new plants it might be fun to grow—carrots, cucumbers, herbs, and wildflowers. We saw the first local strawberries of the season and snatched up three cartons, so I could slice them over the buttermilk pie I was planning to make for Memorial Day. After a while, June and I peeled off to go listen to Banjo Man while Beth and Noah continued shopping. We sat on the sidewalk and June scribbled with the chalk he provides. I wrote her name in pink while Banjo Man ran through his repertoire, which ranges from the ABCs to “The Wabash Cannonball.” (During this song he accompanied himself on the train whistle.) When I spied Beth and Noah approaching, I expected them to gesture for us to come along with them, but Noah ran over and plopped down on the sidewalk next to me. I glanced at Beth and she shrugged. Apparently, Noah can be a little nostalgic sometimes, too.

Monday Morning: The Be Good Tanyas

I was giving June a bath. Through the open bathroom window I could hear the clickety-clack of the mower as Beth mowed the lawn. It was the beginning of a day the four of us would spend mostly in the yard, mowing, putting in the garden, splashing in the wading pool and eating a picnic lunch and a picnic dinner. As soon as June was clean and dressed, we’d go outside. For now, though I was watching June play in the water and listening to a new CD playing in the kitchen with about half an ear. Two weeks ago I received four new CDs for my birthday. I’d only listened to two of them so far and not with what I’d call complete attention. When I was a teenager, listening to a new album or tape was a solemn ritual. I’d close the door of my room, sprawl out on my bed and read the lyrics as the music played, completely absorbed in the experience. Now I just let music, brand new or deeply familiar, play in the background of whatever chaos is currently unfolding. If a song catches my attention, I might glance at the lyrics later, if I remember. My best opportunity to really listen comes on Sunday mornings while Beth and June grocery shop and Noah disappears into the study and plays computer games. I do my housecleaning then and listen to NPR or a CD.

So, I’ve played this CD, but I wouldn’t say I’ve listened to it yet. It sounds like something I’d like, kind of old-time and bluegrassy, but I can’t remember a single lyric. I think I will give it another spin next Sunday.

Tuesday Afternoon: Water Music

Noah came off the bus, kind of subdued and complaining of a headache. He asked what we should do. I reminded him that I’d promised he could play with the sprinkler when the predicted high temperature for the day reached eighty degrees. We’ve had a run of unseasonably cold weather, but the high was eighty-four that day. He immediately perked up. I got him some Tylenol and changed June into her bathing suit while Noah changed into his. We set up the sprinkler in the garden. At first it seemed like we placed it in the perfect place to water the garage roof, but eventually most of our little plots got a good soaking. I’d water the rest with water from the wading pool later.

As the water showered down on June she sang:

It’s raining.
It’s pouring.
The old man is snoring.

Noah was running under the sprinkler and singing, too:

You woo-woo-woo-woo can do woo-woo-woo-woo a la la la la la lot in the water You woo-woo-woo-woo can do woo-woo-woo-woo a la la la la la lot in the water… Splash and swim through the blue green waves move your arms and kick your feet. play with the dolphins, chase the pretty fish
but don’t bother sharks you might meet.

(http://www.milkshakemusic.com/lyrics-wuuu.cfm)

Wednesday Morning: Kindermusik

At 8:25 I asked June, “Are you ready for a bath?”

“No,” she said decisively and waved the CD she was holding in her hand.

“Do you want to listen to music instead?”

“Yes,” she said, in a satisfied tone.

Just as well, I thought. We had to be out of the house by 8:55 to catch the bus for Kindermusik anyway. Squeezing a bath in would have made us rush and if I put on a CD it would occupy her while I did the breakfast dishes and gathered up our things. I took the CD from her (it was one of mine) and popped the Kindermusik CD in instead. We haven’t been listening to it as much as I’d resolved. I thought she’d get more out of the class if she became familiar with the songs. When Ms. Becky sings them in class they’re fine toddler-fare, but the performance on the CD is beyond cloying so I haven’t been playing it much. June ran to the couch and sat down, ready to listen. I went about my business and when I came to put on her shoes she announced, “I poopy.” Indeed, she was. I didn’t even need to check. I looked at my watch: 8:53. There was no time to change her. I’d have to take her on the bus as is and change her at music class. There would be plenty of time. We’re always early.

This was my first mistake. If I stayed to change her and walked to Kindermusik (it’s not that far—we usually walk home) we might have arrived close to on time. My second mistake was not asking to get off the bus when it stopped in front of a “Road Closed” sign where Sligo Creek runs under Maple Avenue. The bus detoured along Sligo Parkway and I had no idea when it would return to its regular route. The driver was uncommunicative on this point when another rider tried to engage him. Every few minutes, June would say “I poopy” in a plaintive voice as the bus took us further and further from music class. As it turned out we were almost to Silver Spring when we finally were allowed off. I walked as fast as I could, pushing the stroller up the long, steep hill at the end. I was sweaty and out of breath when we arrived, but we were only ten minutes late.

“Music class is fun!” June declared as I undid the stroller buckles, and hustled her into the classroom. Ms. Becky handed us some rhythm sticks, which we took into the bathroom. June lay on the floor, banging her sticks together as I performed the long-delayed change.

I signed June up for Kindermusik during the week and a half in March when we thought she would not be attending nursery school in the fall. I was looking for alternative activities for her and it looked like we’d have a little extra money to spend since we wouldn’t be paying tuition. Up to now my mantra had been “free or cheap activities only.” Kindermusik is neither free nor cheap. And in some ways it’s similar to the free “twosies” program at the library. It’s a group of twelve kids about her age (eighteen months to three years). There are songs and rhymes. There’s more dancing and moving around, though, and there are a lot of cool instruments to play.

We emerged from the bathroom ready to play. I wrapped June in a scarf and we pretended she had butterfly wings. We scurried around like squirrels. (The session theme is “Creatures in My Backyard.”) We played with jingle bells and assorted shakers, rocked to the rocking song and watched Ms. Becky blow bubbles. June always observes this ritual solemnly, never reaching out to touch the bubbles or chasing them as the other children do.

She has come out of her shell a bit at Kindermusik, though. Two weeks ago, after class on the playground adjacent to the class building, she spoke to a child other than Noah for the first time. June approached a classmate on the play structure and said, “Hey, Baby.” (In June’s world, all children under the age of five or so are babies.) The boy did not answer, but the next week she tried him again. Still nothing. She spoke to another boy, who was holding a plastic dinosaur: “Is your dinosaur looking good?” June has a tendency to turn statements into questions so she probably meant “I like your dinosaur.” It’s hard work talking to other toddlers. So far she’s zero for three in terms of getting a response. I hope she keeps trying, though. These mysterious little people are the creatures in her backyard and she’s trying to learn their ways. That alone is worth the price of admission.

Thursday Morning: Welcome to My Backyard

I was sitting under the shade of the silver maple in our backyard, watching June roam around. Every few minutes she’d come over with a small tribute for me—a leaf, a wild strawberry, or a handful of sand from the sandbox.

This time she was empty-handed and clapping rhythmically as she approached. “Are you ready for your song?” she asked.

“What’s my song?” I said.

“Welcome to My Backyard,” she prompted. So I sang the kindermusik welcome song:

Welcome to my backyard
Come along with me
Wonder what we’ll see
Come along with me
Welcome to my backyard
Listen to the sounds
Listen to the creatures all around

Clap hello to June, clap, clap, clap
Clap hello to Xander, clap, clap, clap (Here I pointed to our cat Xander, sitting on the back steps.)
Clap hello to Mommy, clap, clap, clap, clap

I paused. The names come in groups of four. I needed one more. June waited. I ventured:

Clap hello to the tree, clap, clap, clap.

June laughed with surprise and delight. You are never as good a singer, or a comedian as when you have babies and toddlers.

Thursday Afternoon: Love Song for A Jellyfish

For language arts homework on Thursday, Noah had to pick a poem he liked, copy it and be prepared to read it in class. In preparation, for the past few days we’ve been reading poems from a collection of poems about animals (http://januarymagazine.com/kidsbooks/beautybeast.html). We read the whole insect section, the fish section and part of the bird section. He decided he’d pick one from the fish section since ocean creatures are his current scientific passion.

I fully expected Noah to spend a half hour paging through the book, unable to choose a poem, or to pick one full of words he didn’t understand. (Some of the poems are a bit advanced for him). But almost right away he chose this one:

Love Song for a Jellyfish
By Sandra Hochman

How amazed I was, when I was a child,
To see your life on the sand.
To see you living in your jelly shape,
Round and slippery and dangerous.
You seemed to have fallen
Not from the rim of the sea,
But from galaxies.
Stranger, you delighted me. Weird object of
The stinging world.

It was perfect. I asked him to practice reading it aloud so I could give him some pointers, but I didn’t really need to. He read it beautifully, with only the occasional stumble. He read with expression and paused in the right places.

As part of his bedtime ritual Beth reads him four poems a night from anthologies we check out of the library. I think he must have absorbed something from this experience without any of us knowing it was happening. I taught literature long enough to know how few people can read poetry well. You have to hear the music in the words to do it. He hears it. He really does.

Friday Morning: The Master of His Feet

“There’s a pirate in the kitchen,” I told Beth. Noah had emerged from his room, wearing a t-shirt with a dog dressed as a pirate on it.

Noah skipped off toward the study, singing:

I am the master of my feet, The captain of my ship
I choose to sail the seven seas and make the most if it.
Adventure waits for all who come so climb aboard m’ mate
We’ll head due west when the winds are best Oh, I can h-argh-dly wait
Heigh ho (Heigh ho)
Hoist the anchor friends
Heigh ho (heigh ho)
Come sail the seas again.

(http://www.milkshakemusic.com/lyrics-pirates.cfm)

The real lyric is “the master of my fate,” of course, but Noah always sings it that way and we are too amused by it to correct him. Considering how often Noah trips and falls and crashes into things, being the master of his feet might seem almost as glamorous and improbable to him as being a pirate anyway.

Friday Evening: Pan Masters Steel Drums

Noah, June and I got off the bus at 6:05. The steel drum concert outside the co-op was scheduled to begin at six, but I could see the big drums still being unloaded from the trucks across the street. I told Noah they wouldn’t be starting for a while, but he urged, “Let’s go! I want to be early.” I suggested we go inside the co-op and buy some drinks first so we’d have them when Beth arrived with the pizza. We were having a Friday night picnic at Function at the Junction, a free weekly outdoor concert series in the co-op parking lot. Tonight the featured band was Pan Steel Drum Masters.

By 6:15 we were seated with our drinks and the band was set up and playing. Playing really, really loudly. Noah put his hands on his ears and complained it was “like thunder.” I thought we might get used to it after a few minutes, but when Beth arrived at 6:20, we decided to re-locate to the picnic tables in front of the co-op. From there we could still hear the music but not at quite such a deafening level and we could eat our pizza more easily.

I listened to the music, recognizing the occasional Bob Marley tune, while we ate and chatted with each other and waved to people we knew. Noah and I summarized the plot of the segment of Peter Pan we’d watched without Beth the night before so she’d be caught up when we watched the rest. It was a pleasant outing, even if as we walked home, Noah expressed some skepticism that that was really “the finest steel drum band” as the announcer had maintained. “There must be one that’s finer.”

Just before I put June to bed, I listened to her sleepily recount to Beth the events of the evening. The music was loud. We ate pizza. She was “very happy.” I’m not sure if it was the music, the pizza or both that made her happy, but I was glad to hear it.

Noah will probably never be the musical prodigy I once envisioned, but music is still a big part of the children’s lives. It helps them express their joy at running through the sprinkler on a warm day, relax enough to approach others and feel “very happy.” Every day, they sing out loud; they sing out strong. And, with any luck, that will last their whole lives long

Lucky Duck

Posted on May 4, 2008 by Steph

“I’m seven,” Noah announced when he came into our bedroom at 6:50 yesterday morning. “It’s my birthday.”

“Happy Birthday,” I answered, stretching my arms out of the bed to give him his first seven-year-old hug. “It’s also a weekend,” I reminded him. “So you’ll have to go back to your room for a little while.”

We recently instituted a later wakeup time for weekends. Noah can still come into our room at 6:30 on weekdays, but on weekends, it’s 7:10. (We proposed 7:00 and when he offered us an extra ten minutes, we readily accepted.)

Soon I could hear the clicking of Magna-Tiles (http://www.magnatiles.com/) fitting together and Noah’s cheerful voice singing:

You woo-woo-woo-woo can do woo-woo-woo-woo a la la la la la lot under water
A You woo-woo-woo-woo can do woo-woo-woo-woo a la la la la la lot under water…

You can pretend you are mermaids or mermen
swimming deep beneath the sea
if you find lost treasure on the ocean floor
please bring it back up to me.

(http://www.milkshakemusic.com)

Apparently he was anticipating his party, which was going to have an “Under the Sea” theme. He’d picked an underwater scene he found online for the invitations. I’d bought gummy sharks and squids and other sea animals along with rubber ducks and water-squirters in the shapes of dolphins, sharks and alligators for the goody bags. Beth decorated the bags, drawing jellyfish on the girls’ bags and sharks on the boys’, per Noah’s instructions. The guests’ names were written in tentacles and teeth. She also fashioned him the “coral crown” he requested out of pink craft foam and baubles they found at a craft shop. Beth baked the cake and frosted it with a scuba-diving penguin on a blue background. (This, of course, was based on a design from Club Penguin.) The party itself was to be held partly on the D.C. Duck (http://www.dcducks.com/), an amphibious tour vehicle that takes you to see some of the monuments and other sights on your way to the Potomac, where you take a short cruise.

When Noah came into the room Beth (who had arisen at 6:20, showered and left the house) was already on her way to stand in line for tickets for the Duck, which are only available on a same-day basis.

When Beth returned around 8:45, with tickets in hand and laden with coffee and pastries from Union Station, Noah began to unwrap his first round of presents. Among the big hits were the tropical fish short pajama set Andrea sewed for him (he decided to wear the top to his party), Magic Tree House #39 (appropriately titled A Dark Day in the Deep Sea) and a six-month renewal of his Club Penguin membership.

When the presents were opened, he started telling us more about his recess club, the Penguin Secret Agency, or P.S.A. (It’s based on the secret agent program on Club Penguin. Noah recently qualified to be a secret agent on the site.) Right now the recess club seems to be splitting its time between solving mysteries and growing its membership. Peter’s job is to talk up the club on the playground, while Sasha writes its name in sidewalk chalk. They’ve had a recent coup: a second grader joined the previously all first-grade club. I asked Noah if there were any girls in the club and he said no, that he’d wanted to ask Maura, but he didn’t because “she has her own club she’s the boss of, like me.”

“You’re the boss of the club?” I asked. This was news.

“Yeah, because I started it,” he said. This heartened me, not because I think he needs to be the boss of everything, but because after playing almost exclusively with Sasha for the first two-thirds of first grade, he went through a bit of a recess rough patch when Sasha started playing basketball with Sean instead. He remained friendly with both boys and they invited him to join in, but he doesn’t care much for sports so he turned them down. For several weeks he played by himself at recess, trying to recreate the games he and Sasha had played in solo versions. He was a bit downcast about it and I felt helpless to offer advice. I’ve rarely made friends easily and I’ve gone through a few dry spells myself (truth be told I’m in one now). I did try though, making occasional suggestions about how to approach children and reminding him of kids he’s played with in the past. Then, gradually, he began mentioning playing with one child or another for a few days at a time until more often than not, he had a playmate at recess. Then suddenly he was printing out membership forms for his club and discussing its growth potential. He’s rebuilt his social network with admirable speed and panache.

The child development experts say seven can be a whiny, melancholy, self-pitying age. So far we haven’t seen much evidence of that. Granted, he’s only been seven for two days, but it seems to be a good age for him. He’s doing well academically. His teachers say he’s reading and doing math well above grade level and they have no serious complaints about his behavior. His print of the letter N was selected for an elementary and middle school art show at a nearby mall. And he’s overcome a challenging social situation. So far it seems more like lucky seven than sad seven.

Seven is the age when boys in ancient Sparta left home to begin their military training. In medieval times it was the age when sons of nobility moved to the castle to serve as pages in training to be squires and knights. It’s the age at which many Catholics take first Communion. It seems to be recognized in many cultural traditions as an age of increased competence and responsibility. Maybe that’s why, when Noah was a baby and my sister asked how old he’d have to be to fly out to the West Coast and spend a week with her, I said seven. Now that I have a seven year old, and a rather absent-minded one at that, the idea of putting him on a plane by himself frankly horrifies me. So we won’t be doing that, or sending him off to military school, but we did increase his allowance from a dollar a week to two dollars, and with the raise we gave him some new chores.

The party was to be a new experience, too, and logistically more challenging than any we’ve attempted so far. Birthdays up to now have been backyard affairs with grandparents and friends of the family (birthdays one to four) or with his own friends (birthdays five and six). The most recent two have had themes (the five senses and weather) and there were decorations and games related to the theme, but mostly the kids ran around like wild things in the yard and ate cake. It worked for us.

We’ve adhered to the one-guest-per-year-of-the-child’s age guideline for parties, so when it came time to start planning the party, we told Noah he could have seven guests. It so happened this was around the same time he was finding himself short on friends. He could only come up with three. I felt so sad about this I started trying to compensate by suggesting more elaborate parties than we usually throw. My first idea was to take Noah and his guests to tour a cavern. He liked the idea, but when we looked into it we couldn’t find anything closer than ninety minutes from the house and we’d have needed at least one parent and probably more to volunteer as extra drivers, so we nixed the idea. Meanwhile, Noah came up with his under the sea theme and we started working around that. Could we tour a submarine? The only one we could find was at a military museum. We didn’t feel great about that and it presented the same transportation problems as the cavern. How about the oceans exhibit at Natural History, easily accessible by Metro? Closed for renovations. How about a ride on the D.C. Duck, something he’s wanted to do for a while? It goes on the river and not the sea, but it was close enough.

While all this brainstorming was going on, Noah’s guest list kept growing until it hit seven. I wondered if we should have stuck to the cake-in-the-backyard model, but it was too late to turn back. Then right before we sent out the invitations, Noah struck one of the guests from the list and didn’t replace her. Maura, who had her own birthday party and the last soccer game of the season that weekend, sent her regrets. On the morning of the party, Maxine woke up with a stomach bug, and despite her energetic pleading, her mother decided it wasn’t a good idea to send her on a boat. We were down to four of the original guests, plus a late addition, Jill’s younger sister Sadie, whom Jill wanted to bring along. Sadie’s in kindergarten, only seven months younger than Noah and he’s played with both sisters so inviting her seemed like a good idea. The girls’ mother, Suzy, offered to help chaperone as well.

We met Elias, Sasha and Sean at the Metro station at 3:15. All four boys were immediately engaged in a game in which the train was a time machine, taking them back to the time of the dinosaurs. Suzy, Jill and Sadie met us at the Duck at 3:45. The vessel was called “Lucky Duck.” It was smaller than I imagined and our party made up almost half the passengers. We settled into our seats in the open-air vehicle, ready to take in the sights of Washington, D.C. on a warm, sunny spring day.

I’d wondered if Noah’s guests would behave on the Duck, but they were good as gold, requiring only the occasional reminder to keep their elbows inside and to refrain from talking while the tour guide was speaking. June, on the other hand, was a wild woman, restless and noisy and squirmy. I had my hands full trying to keep her from hurling herself, her sippy and her pacifier over the side of the vehicle. I managed to keep her quiet and still for short periods of time by feeding her everything edible I could find in the diaper bag (a stick of barbequed soy jerky and a baggie of mixed dry cereal was all I had). She ran back and forth between my seat and Beth’s every few minutes. I ended up paying more attention to June than to any of the monuments or statues we passed. When we hit the George Washington Parkway and the Duck reached its maximum driving speed of forty miles per hour, June’s hair was blowing all over and she was laughing in delight. Once we were on the water, June was even more intent of throwing herself overboard. Meanwhile, the low-flying airplanes landing and taking off from National Airport fascinated all the kids, big and little. Once we were back on land, the guide let Noah pass out the souvenir quackers (duck-bill shaped noisemakers) and instructed everyone to quack “Happy Birthday” to him. It wasn’t quite recognizable as “Happy Birthday” but it was impressively noisy.

Back at Union Station, we exited the Duck. After Noah and Sasha nearly gave us a heart attack running away from us in the parking lot, Suzy, Jill and Sadie got into their car and we got back on the Metro. Once we were back in Takoma, Beth took June and drove up to Summer Delights, the ice cream parlor where the rest of the party was to be held, while I herded the four boys the several blocks from the Metro to the ice cream place. Noah, Elias and Sasha were playing a game in which they earned points by stepping on certain kinds of materials and avoiding others. This slowed their progress considerably, so I had to keep calling them to catch up to Sean and me. Sean was a bit disdainful of the game and declined to join.

At Summer Delights, we met up with a couple moms and younger siblings for pizza, cake and ice cream in the patio. Beth simplified the ordering process by limiting the choices to vanilla soft serve with rainbow sprinkles or chocolate with chocolate sprinkles. When it was time to sing “Happy Birthday,” the kids all spontaneously blew their quackers between the lines. They were all on the beat and it actually sounded pretty good.

As we left Summer Delights, June called out, “Noah, Sasha, C’mon!” (in a pretty good imitation of the impatient tone I’d used on the way over) even though Sasha had already left. On our way home, we swung by his house to return his quacker (confiscated by Beth for quacking in the train station, which she had forbidden). Then it was home for bath and opening the presents Noah received from his friends.

Today was a quieter day, full of errands and house cleaning. Noah got a haircut, wrote his thank-you notes and carried out his new chores of helping to clean his room and to assemble the recycling. In between, we found time to play the board game he got from Sadie and Jill and to read A Dark Day in the Deep Sea in its entirety. And tonight, Beth, Noah and June hailed the ice cream truck for the first time this season.

When I tucked Noah in, I left him with my usual litany: “Have a good night’s sleep. Sweet Dreams. See you in the morning. Mommy loves you very much.” Often I add something at the end about what will happen the next day, so I said, “Tomorrow will be your first day at school as a seven year old. “

“Yah!” Noah said, seeming genuinely excited about this.

Happy Birthday, sweet seven year old. Here’s to a lucky year.

Pulling for Annabelle

Posted on April 8, 2008 by Steph

[Show as slideshow]

My aunts Diane and Peggy and my uncle Darryl are visiting my mother and stepfather this week so on Sunday afternoon we met up in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, which made a convenient gathering place between Philadelphia and Washington. My mom’s family lives out West and I don’t see much of them. Peggy has met Noah several times, but never June, and Darryl and Diane were meeting both kids for the first time.

We’d planned to meet outside so the kids could run around if we had to wait, but the older generation arrived first, and the weather, which was supposed to be sunny and warm, turned out to be cold and drizzly, so when we arrived, we went straight inside to the food court.

I felt a bit awkward at first, especially when Darryl greeted Noah as “Jonah” and I couldn’t tell if it was a joke or not. Noah shot me a doubtful glance and I shrugged. June was rather alarmed to see so many new grownups at once and she clammed up, but it didn’t take Noah long to warm up. Soon he was chatting with everyone and impressing the aunts with his vocabulary, though it didn’t seem to me he was saying anything unusual. Is “I’m six, but soon I’ll be seven” an advanced sentence? Maybe it was the syntax.

After the hugs and handshakes and introductions, we headed for lunch. On the way to the tables, I informed my mom that for the first time since she was six months old, June is back on the growth charts, at twenty-two pounds and thirty-one inches. She’s at the very bottom of the chart, but good news is good news. Peggy and Darryl said she looked only a little smaller than their grandson Josiah, who will be two in May.

After we staked out a table in the crowded food court, we split up to get our food. Once everyone was back, June sat in Mom’s lap and ate French fries and Thai noodles and vegetables from Beth’s lunch and mine. Noah entertained the group by singing “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” in German, a trick he learned at his spring break drama camp last month. Usually when my mother and her sisters are together there’s a lot of joking and laughing, but aside from Noah’s antics the mood was more subdued than usual.

The reason was Annabelle. Diane’s daughter Holly is four and a half months pregnant with her first child and she and her husband Matt recently learned that the baby, a girl they’ve named Annabelle, had spina bifida (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spina_bifida). Diane’s taking it hard. In fact, my mother was worried that seeing my kids might be hard for her. I’m sure it was, but she seemed to enjoy talking with Noah and quizzing him on his reading as we walked from the food court to the Maryland Science Center (http://www.mdsci.org/). He could read the banner on the front of the museum. He knew what “gem” means.

There were plenty of distractions in the Science Center. It’s a very interactive, hands-on museum. Noah enjoyed turning knobs to make balls roll in a track, playing a harp equipped with motion sensors instead of strings and making huge bubbles with a device that looked like a guillotine. Pop helped with this last one by blowing the bubbles into shape after Noah hoisted the blade. Noah and I put photographs in order to track an embryo’s development and again to show a woman aging. Mom and the kids stood in front of a sensor that measured their heights. Mom, Diane and Peggy, for reasons unknown, submitted to an electric shock. In the children’s room, June had a blast at the water table. It was here she let her guard down and let the aunts hear her talking, using two of her well-worn phrases, “Can you help me?” and “I want it back!” after another child took her cup.

On the way out of the museum, Noah and Darryl played with a tug-of-war machine that was rigged to give the weaker contestant an advantage. (It was something about the angle of the rope. It’s hard to read the explanatory signs while chasing a toddler around.) Mom and Peggy stayed behind to shop for Noah’s birthday present at the gift shop while the rest of us headed to Håagen-Dazs so Diane could treat us to ice cream. Outside the museum Noah tried to dance with Diane a little too vigorously (she has bad knees). Diane explained to him that he had “unlimited energy” while her was “limited.”

“I know what those words mean,” Noah said. By now he’d figured out she was interested in words and he was showing off. He then gave a pretty decent definition of both words.

If Noah was still in fine form, his sister was showing signs of exhaustion. She’d only had a half hour nap on the drive over to Baltimore and she looked about ready to nod off into her cup of dulce de leche ice cream, so we said our goodbyes and headed home.

The next morning we had an appointment at the pediatric cardiologist. At June’s two-year appointment last week the doctor noticed an irregularity in her heartbeat. It was subtle; the medical student she had assisting her with patients that day couldn’t hear it even when they had their stethoscopes on June’s chest simultaneously. It was almost surely nothing, Dr. A assured us, but just in case, she gave us a referral to Dr. H for a follow-up visit.

“Are we worried?” I asked Beth once Dr. A left the room.

“No,” she said, and we really weren’t. Beth had a heart murmur all through her childhood; so did my sister Sara. Still, we made the appointment. It was on a day Noah had off school so he came along. I dressed June in a long-sleeved t-shirt with a heart on it, as a joke or a good luck charm.

After a short wait, Dr. H came out into the waiting room. He explained he was going to do an EKG and a sonogram of June’s heart. This was when a little thread of panic started to uncurl in my chest. I don’t know exactly what equipment I’d expected him to use, surely not just another stethoscope; he is a specialist after all. But an EKG and a sonogram sounded more serious than I’d thought.

I don’t know if June picked up on my mood change or if she suddenly remembered the vaccination and blood draw at her last doctor’s appointment, but when it came time to leave the Legos and the bead maze in the waiting room to follow the doctor to the first examining room, she told Beth she was “scared.” Beth reassured her it would be fine.

I couldn’t see June’s face in the examining room because she was sitting on my lap, but Beth told me later she looked very uncertain the whole time she was hooked up to the EKG. Dr. H let Noah hold the tangle of cords while he studied the printout. He said it looked perfectly normal.

We moved on to the next examining room. Dr. H popped in a Magic School Bus video (Noah’s choice) to distract June while he smeared her chest with goop and rubbed the wand across it. And then for the first time since she was inside me, we watched her heart beat. It’s a wondrous, humbling thing to watch, no matter what the reason. Dr. H looked at it from various angles and cross sections. He said he saw the irregularity now; every now and then her heart pauses between beats. I couldn’t see it but Beth did. Dr. H decided to repeat the EKG to see if there was anything he’d missed on the first one. Again, it looked perfectly normal. She was fine, he told us at last. She has a slightly irregular heart rhythm, but there’s no cause for concern. Relief washed over me. We got coffee and pastries at the Starbucks in the lobby and our mid-morning snack felt like a celebratory feast.

That night Sara called me. In the course of our conversation, she asked if I knew about Annabelle. I said yes and she told me she’s been reading Matt’s blog (http://thedawgrun.blogspot.com/). I asked her to send me the url.

Today I read all the posts about Annabelle, starting just before the diagnosis. The tone of the post in which Matt mentions a “a slight elevation in some chemical or other that has to do with neural-tube disorders” reminded me of my nonchalance before June’s heart appointment. Like me, he was pretty sure there was nothing to worry about. Unlike me, he was wrong.

Sometimes it seems like parents live under continuous sniper fire. Mostly we dodge the bullets, so often that we become desensitized to them and fail to worry about every possible thing, but sometimes the bullet hits.

It’s not fair.

All we can do is brace for the shock, and if it comes, take what comfort we can from our team, those who are pulling for us. Holly and Matt have received tremendous support on and off the blog and they seem up to the tremendous challenge they are facing. I haven’t seen Holly since my sister’s wedding ten years ago and I’ve only met Matt once, so anything I say or do is just a small part of that support, but for what it’s worth, I’m pulling for Annabelle, too.

Loveliest of Trees

Posted on March 30, 2008 by Steph

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

By A.E. Housman

(http://www.bartleby.com/103/33.html)

Like many of you, no doubt, I first encountered this poem in high school. I’ve always liked it, but guess I wasn’t as far-sighted as the twenty-year-old speaker because fifty springs seemed pretty long to me then. Now that I have used up more than forty of my allotment and my parents are in their mid-sixties, it doesn’t seem long at all. My mother recently told me that as she approaches her sixty-fifth birthday, death seems a lot closer, a lot more real. She’s already a few years older than her mother was when she died.

Of course, the poem is as much about life as about death, about enjoying life and savoring its fleeting beauty. There’s a word in Japanese for this, “hanami,” which refers to the act of viewing cherry blossoms and appreciating the “ephermeral nature of life,” (unless the staff writers at The Washington Post are putting us on.). For me, the cherry trees will always be a reminder of June’s birth, because they were just starting to bloom when she surprised us by entering the world six weeks early two springs ago.

Beth and I first started going to see the cherry trees in bloom along the Tidal Basin in 1992, the very first spring we lived in the Washington area. I still remember the magic of that first visit, the delicate beauty of the blossoms, their extravagant profusion, and the holiday atmosphere as people picnicked and strolled around the water. We’ve been back every year since, except one. Having a premature baby in the hospital undergoing phototherapy re-arranges your schedule and your priorities. Even that year, though, we did try, but we missed the hard-to-predict peak and couldn’t get back in time to see it. We have been to the blossoms as a couple, as parents and with extended family on the rare occasion that relatives were lucky enough to time their visits in sync with the fickle blooms.

We made our yearly pilgrimage this morning. The idea was to arrive early, before the crowds and we did make it out of the house by our 8:30 target, despite a meltdown on June’s part and foot-dragging from Noah who had no idea why we would want to go, since blossoms are “not special.” Nevertheless, when we arrived at 9:15, the crowds were already there. Cars were circling around; parking was scarce. This year for the first time, the Park Service is running a free shuttle to remote parking, but it didn’t start running until 10:00, so we parked in remote lot at Hains Point and walked to the Tidal Basin. It was cold, probably around 40 degrees, and there was a stiff wind blowing off the Washington channel. March is apparently not going out like a lamb this year. I sipped my take-out caramel macchiato to keep warm.

“I’m cold! I want to go home!” Noah complained. I wondered if it was really worth the hassle to drag the kids down here every year. It was a lot easier when we lived in the city and we could walk to the blossoms from our apartment. Parking wasn’t an issue and no one whined or complained during the outing. Some years we would go more than once. I remember going alone one year after Beth and I had already gone and camping out under a tree to read or maybe grade papers. I stayed for hours, working, listening to the radio on my Walkman, and taking in the beauty of an early spring day.

Then in less time than I thought it would take, we were there. We hit the peak perfectly this year. Almost every tree was in full bloom, their branches laden with puffs of white and the palest pink. They look like popcorn trees or cotton-candy trees or something out of Dr. Seuss, a more fragile cousin of the Truffula tree perhaps (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lorax).

We ate a breakfast picnic on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial. After the bran muffin, lemon pound cake, coffee cake and orange juice were devoured, Beth bought Noah a cherry blossom festival magnet in the gift shop and soon he was running around happily, shaking hands with trees, hiding behind them and snapping pictures of them. He ended up taking more photographs than anyone else, including two of those featured here.

We didn’t stay long because it was cold and June got cranky. “Aww…Do we have to go?” Noah asked. I would have liked to walk the whole perimeter of the Tidal Basin, as we used to do, and will again someday, but it wasn’t in the cards for us this year.

To look at things in bloom, less than an hour was little room, but it had to be enough.

A Death in the Family: A Memorial

Beth’s uncle Gerry died early Monday morning, at home, surrounded by family. He was a well-traveled man, with a hungry mind, a crusty exterior and a dry wit. He had a Ph.D in math. He could fly planes and speak Polish. While bed-ridden with the cancer that killed him, he was teaching himself ancient Greek. Gerry is survived by his wife Carole (Andrea’s oldest sister), his sister Patricia, his children Meghan and Sean, his daughter-in-law Aine, and six grandchildren: Micheal, Tristan, Holly, Kawika, Rebecca, and Eanna.

Gerry was sixty-nine years old, so he didn’t quite have his three score and ten, but even if he had, it would still seem like too little room, much too little.

R.I.P. Gerry Ryder.

http://www.news-register.net/page/content.detail/id/507538.html?nav=516

Back to the Drawing Board – Postscript

Posted on March 15, 2008 by Steph

June got into the Purple School off the waiting list only nine days after we heard she didn’t get in. Beth came into the bathroom Friday evening while I was undressing for a shower and let me know she’d just read the news in her email.

We stood there just looking at each other for a moment, waiting for the other to speak. I’d known this was a possibility but I expected if it happened at all it would be months from now. Noah also got in off the waiting list, but in June. I’d pretty much forgotten he was even on a waiting list.

“I think we should do it,” I said cautiously. “I’m still bruised, and I’m going to be self-conscious as hell about my co-oping but I think we should do it.”

Beth agreed and said she was going to ask for an opportunity to find out exactly what the concerns about our co-oping with two-year-olds were, so we could have a chance to address them. So pending that discussion, we think we will probably enroll her.

It changes so much, knowing June will have a fun, nurturing, affordable, high-quality preschool to attend for the next three years and that we will not have to go through the stressful, crazy-making preschool admissions process that’s standard for middle and upper class parents in our area. I had started to research other schools for her 3s year and I was a bit shocked at how much non-co-operative preschools cost. All and all, I was dreading the whole admissions scramble. It still stings a bit, knowing we didn’t make the first cut at our first-choice school, especially since we know people on the admissions committee, but I can get over that.

We took the kids to the Easter egg hunt sponsored by the Takoma Park recreation department this morning. The first time we took Noah to this egg hunt I was really surprised to find the eggs were not hidden. They are just laid out on a field that’s marked off into separate areas for different age groups. When the whistle blows, the kids rush in and grab all the trinket-filled plastic eggs they can. The hunt in the two-and-under area is pretty relaxed, with toddlers ambling around and carefully picking up eggs. June ended up with five eggs to the several dozen her brother scavenged from the more rough-and-tumble five- and six-year-olds area.

It just goes to show that sometimes you have to hustle for the egg and sometimes you only need to bend down and pick it up.

Back to the Drawing Board

Posted on March 6, 2008 by Steph

June said “I love you” to me for the first time yesterday. That was the good part of the day, the part I’m holding onto. About a month ago she was loving a lot of things: Beth, her “best bear,” her hair (I’m not kidding). But shortly after the word “love” surfaced in her vocabulary, it disappeared. Then yesterday, after a diaper change, and for no apparent reason, she looked at me and said, “I love you.”

“I love you, too, June,” I said, sweeping her into a hug. I was already in a good mood. We’d just come back from the “twosies” circle time at the library. It’s a special version just for two-year-olds, with extra stories and a craft project at the end. Enrollment is limited so I asked permission from the librarian ahead of time to bring a not-quite-two-year-old. The librarian cheerfully agreed to give it a try.

June didn’t do any of the hand motions to the songs, even though they are familiar to her from the regular circle time. She never does, not at the library anyway. At home she does them all. In fact, just the day before she’d stood up on the changing table so she could watch herself do “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” naked in the bathroom mirror.

At the library, she either sat in my lap or ventured a few steps away to stand near the librarian. I don’t think she took her eyes off her the entire time, even as the group dwindled from twelve toddlers down to eight, as restless or cranky children were carted off by their parents or nannies.

I’d been somewhat skeptical of her ability to do a craft, but it was very simple. All she had to do was decorate a seal cut from poster board with crayons and stickers. She made a few tentative scribbles with the crayons, but then she lost all interest in them as soon as the stickers arrived. I don’t know why stickers are so universally beloved by little kids but apparently June is no exception. Her face lit up when I showed her what to do with them and soon her light blue seal was covered with red hearts and a couple of stickers depicting fruits.

“Noah always brings things home from school to show you and now you have something to show him,” I told her.

The librarian came by, admired her work and affixed a popsicle stick to the back for a handle. This was even better. Now she could hold the seal with the handle, and she did for much of the rest of the day.

“She did great,” the librarian said as we left. “She was very attentive.” I thought about how much she was going to like nursery school in the fall. She’s really enjoying community playtime and library activities and she loves to play at the Purple School itself while Noah is at drama class. It’s already a familiar place to her.

Outside I chatted with a nanny to a boy who is in the 2s class there this year. I mentioned we’d applied. “It’s a good school,” she said enthusiastically.

We were, in fact, supposed to hear from the membership committee that very day. Beth had missed their call at work the day before and we were waiting for the representative to call back. I was a little keyed up about it, checking my email and phone message a good deal more often than usual. As the day wore on, I grew puzzled. Why hadn’t Beth called with the good news?

She came home early, a little before six and I went to greet her at the door. She gave me a hug that went on too long. I knew before she said it. “We didn’t get in.”

Apparently the preference for siblings of alumni (though not the one for siblings of current students) was revoked this year and there were concerns about our ability to co-op with two-year-olds, though we’d never heard any complaints or criticism about our co-oping when Noah was in the 4s class. None of it made any sense.

I went back to the kitchen to finish dinner while Beth interacted with the kids. Figuring out whether to toast the hot dog buns or heat the baked beans in the microwave first seemed like an overwhelming decision. At the table, Beth asked Noah about his day while I moved food around on my plate and finally managed to eat most of it.

During the course of dinner, Noah lost a tooth. It’s been fifteen months since he lost both of his bottom front teeth and he hadn’t lost any since then so it was a noteworthy occasion. One of his top front teeth had gotten so loose it twisted around almost perpendicular to its original position and remained that way for several days. Beth and I were amazed it stayed in his head so long. It makes an impressive gap in his smile. He looks a lot older now, more like the seven-year-old he’ll be in two short months.

I felt a wave of unreality sweep over me. The “I love you,” the unexpected rejection, my son’s new smile. “This day has been too much,” I said to Beth quietly.

After Beth and Noah had left the table, I sat watching June, who was gobbling down her second veggie dog. She glanced at me. “What crying, Mommy?” she asked.

Noah, oblivious, called from the hallway, “I don’t think Mommy is crying, June,” he said in the amused tone he uses when she has misinterpreted something. But of course, she hadn’t.

More than anything, I wanted to sleep, to be done with this day, but it took until 9:45 to get June to sleep and then I just lay awake until late in the night, turning things over in my mind. What had we done wrong? What should we do now? It’s too late to apply anywhere else. Of course, two-year-olds don’t need to be in school, but I think she’s ready and she’d enjoy it. I was also looking forward to a regularly scheduled break from her and perhaps the chance to work a bit more. I’ve been updating my resume and I recently submitted it to a clearinghouse for freelance researchers, writers and editors.

The 2s class only meets for five hours a week and I would have spent a lot of that time either in the classroom or walking back and forth between home and school, but the hours increase each year and I was looking at June starting school as a turning point, the time when I might start to regain a little of myself that has been submerged in motherhood since I lost my job almost three years ago. Now I feel like I know a lot less about how the next three years will unfold. We have options, of course. We can hire a babysitter if it’s time for me we want, enroll June in kindermusik or find a playgroup if it’s enrichment or socialization for June we want, but it’s not the same, not what we planned. And even though we were encouraged to re-apply for her 3s year, we’re certainly not regarding it as a sure thing anymore so we might end up doing applications at multiple schools.

When I got June dressed this morning I noticed matching fluorescent green paint stains on her shirt and pants. She’s been painting a lot recently but we don’t have any paint of that shade. It must have been the remnant of some long-ago art project in the toddler room of Noah’s daycare another morning when Beth or I decided the gold turtleneck would look nice with the gray corduroys. Today some orange paint joined the green paint on June’s sleeve. I wish we could pick and choose which of Noah’s childhood experiences to pass down to June as easily as we do with his clothes. But of course, we can’t.

Oh, What a Beautiful Day!

Posted on January 11, 2008 by Steph

[Show as slideshow]

“I might be going to the co-op today. Do you want anything?” I asked Beth. We were standing in the bathroom, snatching a brief conversation in between the everyday crises of a weekday morning. Noah was dragging his feet about getting ready for school. We were out of eggs. Our internet connection had gone missing.

“Eggs,” she replied, naming my second reason for going.

“I’m after yogurt,” I told her. “I’m going to measure what we have and see if there’s enough.”

“What do you need it for?” Beth asked.

“The cake,” I answered, smiling a little. The cookbook had been on the kitchen counter open to the recipe since the day before.

“Oh, the cake!” Beth said, sudden realization showing on her face. “Happy Anniversary!” she said. We exchanged a quick kiss. Our grown-up celebration, when we leave June with a paid sitter for the first time ever and have brunch at Savory, will be Sunday so it had slipped her mind that the actual day was today.

Now if you’re scratching your head and thinking, “Wasn’t there an anniversary post on this blog not six months ago?” we celebrate two, the dating anniversary in July and the commitment ceremony anniversary in January. I guess we do it for the same reason we celebrate the kids’ half-birthdays. We like celebrations and we like cake.

The cake is a moist, dense spice cake with a lemon glaze. It was our wedding cake and I’ve made it almost every January 11 since 1992, the year of our commitment ceremony.

Our commitment ceremony was largely a homemade affair. We were just months out of grad school (the first round for me). Beth had a part-time job at ERIC (www.eric.ed.gov/) and for most of the time between my proposal in July and the ceremony in January I was unemployed. I started working at Project Vote (www.projectvote.org/) in mid-December. Our parents were less supportive of our relationship than they are now, so we were on our own when it came to planning and financing the ceremony.

Except we weren’t, not really. A friend with bakery experience decorated the cake. Another friend helped us track down all the pink and purple potted violets and purple eucalyptus branches available at local florists and one of my college advisors paid for them. Guests brought food and made speeches and wrote touching notes in the guest book. Although we were pinched for cash (we had a thousand dollar budget), it ended up being just what we wanted, small and personal and meaningful. Better still, it served as a turning point in our parents’ acceptance of us as a couple. Five of the six parents and stepparents attended and after the ceremony the two who were having the hardest time letting go of their vision of how their daughters’ lives would unfold started to come around, one quickly and the other gradually.

We didn’t have enough yogurt so after Beth and Noah were gone, June was bathed and a load of laundry was started, we ventured out into a cold and drizzly morning, headed for the co-op where I purchased yogurt, eggs and an anniversary card.

I made the cake in the afternoon, shortly before Noah’s bus came. I managed to get most of the ingredients into the bowl while June was in the high chair eating a late lunch of vegetarian hot dogs and succotash, so I only had the add the last few, mix them up and pour the batter into the greased pan while she clung to my legs and screamed. This is the hallmark of a successful baking experience by my current standards. I had a moment’s hesitation before pouring out the batter. It seemed thin. I wondered if I’d only put in one cup of flour instead of two. I was almost sure I’d put in two, though, so I slid the pan into the oven and hoped for the best.

When Noah got home, the clouds were clearing so we played outside a bit, and then the focus of the day shifted to getting him undressed, into his bathing suit and back into his clothes by 4:00 p.m.. He had a swimming lesson at 5:30 and he watches television from 4:00 to 5:00 most weekdays. June usually watches with him so I used most of the hour to work on an editing project I’m doing for Word Girl (www.wordgirl.biz), interrupted every five or ten minutes or so by June coming in with her little cup held out Oliver Twist-style while she pleaded “Mir ov?” (Translation: “More olives.” Sliced black olives are one of June’s favorite afternoon snacks and she can really put them away.) When only fifteen minutes remained, I checked to see if the cake was cool and I poured the glaze over it. Then I outlined it with a ring of red frosting from a can (leftover from Beth’s Buzz cake) and drew a sixteen in the middle. Finally I sprinkled pink and purple sparkles (meant to evoke the pink and purple violets) liberally over the whole creation. Noah came in to see it when his television was over and he declared it “beautiful.”

Beth was home by 5:05 and we hurried to get everyone’s shoes and jackets on and to get out the door. We were going out for pizza after Noah’s lesson and it seemed quickest for everyone to leave together. June, who had been trying to organize the expedition–“Shoes on! Mommy jacket on! Where Baf?”—now trotted happily down the driveway, holding my hand. Despite the fact that she usually has no idea where we are going, she is always up for a trip. We got everyone buckled in. Beth turned the key in the ignition. And the car didn’t start.

Beth closed her eyes in frustration. Just the night before she’d come home early to attend Math Night at Noah’s school when they got in the car, the battery wouldn’t start. They’d walked to school instead and afterward her auto service came to jump-start the car. She’d driven around a while and we thought it was fixed. Everyone got out of the car. June’s face crumpled and she began to cry when I took her out of her seat and she was snatched from the brink an outing.

“I think we should still go out,” Beth said. “We should do the fun part, go out for pizza.” So she called the Y and rescheduled Noah’s lesson for Sunday afternoon, then we all trooped out to the bus stop. As we waited for a bus, she said, “I’m glad we’re a hardy family and can change plans like this.”

Once we were on a bus, we called to order ahead and once we arrived at zpizza (zpizza.com/), there was a small pineapple pizza for the kids and a pesto, eggplant and pine nut one for the grownups ready and waiting. The eggplant slices were cut into a flower pattern and they were so pretty against the green background of the pesto that I almost didn’t want to take a slice until Beth, who was waiting in a long line for drinks, had a chance to see the whole effect. But it seemed foolish not to eat when the kids were eating because who knew when they’d been tearing around the restaurant like maniacs, so after I cut June’s slice into pieces and slipped Beth’s card onto her plate, I ate.

The pizza was delicious, the kids did not descend into any truly uncivilized behavior (though June did deconstruct a stack of booster seats so she could sit in each one in turn) and we left the restaurant happy.

As we approached the bus stop we noticed a 17, the bus we needed, pulling away. They come every twenty minutes so we were in for a wait. As we got closer to the stop we noticed there was a line of buses (all different routes) standing at the stop and not moving. This was because traffic wasn’t moving. At all. We might be in for an even longer wait than we thought. I took June out of the stroller prematurely when I thought I saw a 17 approaching the stop (it was a 16). This was a grave error, because once unrestrained she wanted to run. She did not want to sit next to me on the bench. She did not want to be held (my mind flashed back to the afternoon when I had been trying to mix cake batter and it had been imperative that she be held). She squirmed and cried and twisted through a very long wait. Once we got on a bus, it limped along until the traffic cleared a couple blocks from the stop and we were on our way home.

We got home around 7:45, much later than we expected, so we couldn’t watch Fraggle Rock and we decided to skip Noah’s bath. We sat around the table to eat cake. I was a bit nervous slicing into it–had I really put two cups’ flour in? And it was fine, a moist, dense spicy cake, deeply familiar, and deeply comforting. Because even though it was rainy and cold and Noah missed his swim lesson, the important things still turned out fine. We had each other’s company, hot pizza waiting for us, a beautiful cake at home. And no matter what the weather or what plans go awry on it, January 11 will always be a beautiful day.

Sweet Sixteen Months, or Five Days with June

Posted on July 27, 2007 by Steph

Noah’s science camp this week was a full day one, instead of the half-day camps he’s had so far this summer. He and Beth left the house every morning at 8:30, 8:15 if they decided to visit the playground near the Montgomery College Takoma Park campus (www.montgomerycollege.edu/tphome/) before camp started at 9:00. June and I boarded a 2:55 bus to pick him up at 3:30 each afternoon. This schedule gave June and I more time alone together than we’ve had in several weeks. Here are a few things we did while Noah was off making a race car powered by the air escaping from a balloon, a dump truck with a hydraulic system made of syringes and glow-in-the-dark slime.

Monday Morning: June Turns Sixteen Months and Is Taken For a Boy and a Six Month Old

June was enjoying the toddler-sized play structures at the Westmoreland playground, especially the staircase with a railing that allowed her to walk downstairs unassisted, when a voice called from the roof, “Hello!”

I looked up. It was a girl about Noah’s age. “Hi,” I answered, probably less surprised than she hoped. Noah likes to climb up there too.

The girl was lying on the roof with her face hanging over the edge, a few inches from my own. “How old is he?” she asked, gesturing to June, who was spinning the cylinder with noisemakers inside.

I glanced at June. When people hazard a guess at her gender they are more often wrong than right, since she mostly wears Noah’s hand-me-downs and a lot of the clothes we have bought for her came from the boys’ aisle of the consignment shop. We just like boys’ clothes better. Today, though, June was wearing a pair of white pants with red, orange and yellow flowers on them, hand-me-downs from Kathleen’s daughter Caitlin. They even have red bows at the ankles. True, she wore a plain red t-shirt and navy blue sneakers with them, but this is about as girly as June gets, unless it’s a dress-up occassion. “She’s a girl,” I said, “And she’s sixteen months.” Exactly sixteen months, to the day, I thought, but didn’t say.

“How old are you?” asked the girl.

I laughed, surprised at the question. We are so often called upon to report our children’s ages and so infrequently our own. “Forty. And how old are you?”

“Six. My mother is twenty-five. She works for State Farm. My grandmother is a babysitter. She watches her.” She motioned to a preschool-age girl standing near-by. “Where do you work?” A long exchange ensued in which I tried in different ways to explain that I stay home with my kids and she kept asking me what my real job was. Eventually, I told her I used to be a teacher, but on hearing I wasn’t currently looking for a teaching job, she was still unsatisfied. Finally, she hit on the answer herself. “So you’re a babysitter for your kids?”

“I guess so,” I said.

“Lucky mom,” she commented. She looked back at June. “What’s her name?”

“June.”

“But June’s a month!”

“It is, but it’s also a name.”

“My name is Vanessa.”

“My name is December,” the younger girl piped up.

“She’s lying,” Vanessa said. “She always lies about her name. It’s Catherine.” Catherine/December looked abashed. Soon after Vanessa’s grandmother came to collect them and they left.

That afternoon as we waited for the bus, a man at the stop looked at June and said, “About six months?”

“Um, no, sixteen,” I said. Okay, she’s little. She was even wearing size 6-12 month clothes at the time. But she was also standing on top of a wall, taking sideways hops along it in one direction, then the other. Is she that hard to recognize as a toddler girl, I wondered, even in floral garb, even walking on a wall two feet off the ground?

Fortunately, June was not bothered in the least. She began trying to climb down the wall so she could walk on the sidewalk and perhaps even dart into traffic. I was mean and wouldn’t let her.

Tuesday Afternoon: June Multitasks

I often ride the exercise bike in our basement with June bobbing up and down on my thigh. This week I was aiming for twelve minutes a day. (And I did it!) It’s about as long as June can last without getting fussy and five times twelve minutes equals an hour. It’s not much as far as aerobic exercise goes, but it’s something, and something is better than nothing. I never know when or if she’ll nap alone so I like to spend that time (if I get it) having some one-on-one time with Noah or getting a jump on making dinner. (I have this crazy preference for cooking without anyone clinging to my legs and screaming.) Plus anything I accomplish with June awake feels like a bonus.

Tuesday afternoon we squeezed exercise time in right before we needed to get on the bus to get Noah. I held June in one arm, while using the other to flip through a book of Roz Chast cartoons (www.planetcartoonist.com/editorial/success_rozchast.shtml). The book was an experiment; I had reached a new level of multitasking.

I looked down at June. She was busy, too. In one arm she clutched her favorite bunny, in the other she held a Maisy book (www.maisyfunclub.com/), which she propped (upside down) against my chest to free an arm to page through it. “Book,” she muttered over and over, pronouncing it clearly, even with a pacifier in her mouth.

Wednesday Afternoon: June Watches a Horror Movie

I decided to take advantage of Noah’s longer absence this week to watch a movie. June’s usually pretty good about playing independently as long as I am sitting still in an accessible place, so she likes movies, too. Soon she will be too old for me to watch much besides kids’ TV with her in the room, so I picked Stephen King’s six-hour miniseries The Stand, or rather the first two installments, to watch this week. I’ve been wanting to see it since I re-read the novel earlier this year. Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear The Reaper,” that good old horror movie-music standby, plays during the opening credits:

All our times have come
Here but now they’re gone
Seasons don’t fear the reaper
Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain
We can be like they are

Come on, baby… Don’t fear the Reaper
Baby, take my hand… Don’t fear the Reaper
We’ll be able to fly… Don’t fear the Reaper

(www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/him/dontfearthereaper.html)

Apparently, June is one baby that does not fear the reaper in the least. She danced her little June dance, which consists of bending and unbending her knees while enthusiastically bobbing her head to the music. A few minutes into the film a crow pecks at the eyes of a child’s discarded Raggedy Andy doll. It’s meant to symbolize the coming plague that will wipe out 99% of the human race. The girl who drops the doll is only a little older than June and looks a lot like her. It’s a chilling moment, or it was until June pointed at the screen and said, “Duck!” in a delighted tone. In June’s world, any large bird is a duck and any duck sighting (ducks in book illustrations, rubber ducks in the tub, or best of all, real ones in the creek) is cause for celebration. The crow appears frequently in the film. As an added attraction, Molly Ringwald, on whom I had a little crush in high school, plays of my favorite characters. June and I settled in for a good time.

Thursday Evening: June Hails the Ice Cream Truck

I fear it might be a sign that we are patronizing the ice cream truck too often this summer that as we walked toward it, June pointed and said, “Mo,” June-speak for “More,” or more broadly, “I’d like some of that please.” She has also been known to run to the door when she hears its siren song and say “Truck!”

Friday Morning: June Observes Proper Etiquette…When She Wants To

Since we all get up more or less at the same time (whenever Noah rouses us) our narrow little bathroom can get pretty crowded in the mornings. And since June likes to be where the action is, early Friday morning found her methodically emptying a low bathroom drawer of its washcloths and then replacing them. “Thangoo. Thangoo. Thangoo,” I heard her say. We often thank June when she hands us something or puts something back where it belongs. If we are not quick enough, she thanks herself.

On the bus home from picking up Noah, June was very cranky, writhing in my arms and sobbing. She’s cutting a molar and has been napping poorly for a few days. She’d just quit crying and had collapsed against my shoulder when a woman with a girl about June’s age boarded the bus. I waved at the girl. She waved back. Noah waved. She waved back. By now the girl was staring at June and waving at her, no longer interested in Noah’s or my waves. She grew increasingly emphatic, her waves resembling karate chops. No response from June. Apparently, it was not time to wave.

After a late afternoon nap and a big dinner she was in better spirits. All four of us sat on the porch and sipped watermelon coolers Beth had made and listened to the patter of a badly needed rain. Or rather Beth, Noah and I sat. June toddled around the porch, sucking watermelon juice out of a cup with a straw, babbling happily and waving at passing cars.

Vanessa was right. I am a lucky mom.

Rainbow, Rainbow, Rainbow

Posted on June 9, 2007 by Steph

I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels–until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!

From “The Fish,” by Elizabeth Bishop
(www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-fish/).

We finally marched in the Pride parade’s family contingent this year, after years of considering and never getting around to it. In June 2001, our first Pride season as parents, we didn’t even manage to watch the parade, even though it passed a mere three blocks from our apartment in the very gay neighborhood between Dupont and Logan Circles in D.C. We tried to go, but Noah was a month old, and getting out of the house was a major undertaking for newbie parents like us. By the time we made it to the corner where we meant to watch, the parade had come and gone. We moved to the suburbs the next May and we didn’t even try to go the next few years, as Pride conflicted with our annual trip to Rehoboth Beach. Noah, who loves pageantry of all kinds, didn’t see a Pride parade until he was four, but when he did, he was favorably impressed with the Mardi Gras beads everyone was wearing and the people throwing candy and the generally festive atmosphere. He even expressed a career goal of being a man who dances on a float in his underpants for a few weeks after the parade. He enjoyed it so much we decided the next year we’d march with Rainbow Families (http://rainbowfamiliesdc.org/). After all, if watching it was fun, marching should be even better. But that year Noah was invited to a birthday party the same day as the parade. We thought we could just make it (even with two-and-a-half-month-old June in tow) but the magician’s act ran late and we ended up not going.

This year when Noah was again invited to a birthday party (for a different boy) on the same day as the Pride parade I experienced a powerful sense of déjà vu. This is just never going to work out, I thought. But Beth pointed out that even though the party was at Sean’s parents’ farm (an hour northwest of Takoma and at least an hour and a half from the parade site) it ended at 3:00 and the parade didn’t start until 6:30. We’d miss some of the stroller/scooter/bike-decorating pizza party that started at 4:00, but it was do-able.

So we all set off for Sean’s parents’ farm, Black Ankle Vineyards (www.blackankle.com/our_story.html), late that morning. The party was a several-hours-long, whole-family affair. The farm was lovely, with lots of room for the kids to run around, cows and chickens for them to visit and a pickup truck to drive them around. Beth and I enjoyed adult conversation (that scarce commodity) with other parents and June had a blast, too. She insisted on playing everywhere Noah had played after the screaming herd of six-year-olds had moved on to their next game. She wanted nothing to do with the tiny inflatable wading pool where Maxine’s one-year-old brother Malachi and Joseph’s seven-month-old sister Isabel splashed. Only the big kids’ pool would do, so I went wading with her. When the big kids played on the Slip ‘n Slide, she watched with interest until they were finished, then she tugged at my hand so she could go toddle up and down its length with Sean’s two-year-old sister Lucy.

We ended up staying until 3:30, a half hour after the party’s official end time, because we didn’t want to miss the piñata and the cake. Once the cardboard and crepe paper Sponge Bob was demolished and its contents disgorged, and the farm-equipment decorated cake was sliced and eaten, I changed June out of her bathing suit and into a clean outfit, denim shorts and a “Let My Parents Marry” t-shirt. Jazmín’s mom Margaret noticed it and said to June very seriously, “I agree!”

We piled into the car and drove to the city. By the time we reached the church, which was serving as the staging area for Rainbow Families, it was 5:30. Beth drove off with June to park the car at the end of the parade route and I took Noah inside. He read aloud with excited recognition the words on the Rainbow Families banner hanging outside the church and the hand-lettered “Love Makes a Family” sign someone was carrying. He remembered both from the Rainbow Families Kids’ Camp he attended one Saturday in April.

In the church basement parents and kids were decorating their wheels and eating. The large room hummed with the energy of scores of exited kids and someone played a rollicking tune on the piano. Noah carefully chose a red crepe paper streamer and a plastic rainbow-colored one to wrap around his scooter. Then we went to eat. I found him a slice of plain pizza, but detecting a few specks of green herbal matter on the gourmet pizza from Alberto’s (our favorite takeout pizza from our urban days), he declared it “not plain.” He dined on potato chips and apple juice instead. I put a cereal bar in my pocket for him to eat later. I thought his scooter was finished, but he told me he wanted to make a sign for it so we headed back to the decorating area and snagged the very last piece of cardboard. Clearly he was paying attention at Kids’ Camp because he knew exactly what to put on such a sign. He instructed me to write, “I Heart My Moms!” and to fill in the heart with rainbow stripes. As a finishing touch, he decided the point of the exclamation point should be heart-shaped. I was torn between trying to get him to do it, since I knew he could, and doing it myself because time was short and people were already drifting out of the church. I took the path of least resistance and lettered the sign myself.

We sat on the grass outside the church, waiting to line up for the parade. As we waited, we spotted Beth and June. I handed Beth a couple slices of pizza. “Alberto’s!” she exclaimed, recognizing the rectangular slices. I’d forgotten to bring any decorating materials for the stroller, but Jack Evans, a D.C. council member, was on hand passing out Mardi Gras beads and I found some scraps of yellow and purple crepe paper lying on the street and soon we were in business.

Rainbow Families was near the front of the parade (in deference to bedtimes) so we got moving pretty quickly after lining up. Once we’d been marching a couple blocks and we came to an area thick with spectators, Noah realized the thunderous applause coming from the curb was for us. He didn’t say anything, but the surprise and wonder of the moment was clear on his face. Suddenly I felt wonder too, a wonder I haven’t felt at Pride in a long time.

Beth and I have been going to Pride since 1988, when we went to Cleveland Pride, not quite a year into our relationship. I was twenty-one and almost as nervous as I was excited to be in a crowd of that unknown quantity, the adult homosexual. Since our baby dyke days, we’ve been to Pride in Iowa City, D.C. New York, Milwaukee and Philadelphia. When Beth worked at HRC (www.hrc.org/), she often had to staff the booths at D.C. and New York Pride and it became almost more business than pleasure for both of us. It’s been a long time since it was anything more emotional than a pleasant afternoon or evening outing, not that different from Takoma Park’s eccentric little Fourth of July parade, an opportunity for the community to gather, celebrate and be a little silly. But when I saw that look in Noah’s eyes, I was momentarily transported to a time when Pride was truly thrilling, when the crowd in its vibrancy, diversity and exuberance could bring tears to my eyes. Victory filled up our little boat and everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!

Living in a liberal enclave like Takoma Park, where signs supporting gay marriage dot the lawns of gays and straights alike, and no new acquaintance blinks when I mention Noah and June’s “other mom,” I must have thought I didn’t need the applause of strangers. But strangers or not, they are my people and I think I do need to hear them cheer at least every now and then.

Maybe I would have predicted this reaction if I’d thought more about the actual experience of marching in the parade and less about the logistics of making it happen. I know from my decades of spectatorship that the contingent of parents and kids always gets some of the most enthusiastic and sustained cheers, often second only to PFLAG (www.pflag.org/). So many in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community feel estranged from their own families that the sight of kids with their “I love my moms” and “I love my dads” signs and the middle-aged to elderly marchers with their “I love my gay son” and “I love my lesbian daughter” signs always touches the crowd in a profound way. Also, in a community whose children so frequently come into existence after years of planning and saving for adoptions and inseminations, there are a lot of people longing for children who don’t yet have them. As we marched, I thought I saw some wannabe moms pointing and melting at the sight of June, who was obliviously playing with beads and trying to eat the crepe paper on her stroller.

The parade wound its way through our old neighborhood. We showed Noah the street where we lived when he was a baby, the playground where we used to take him, and the office of the non-profit where I worked before going back to grad school. (“You used to work in an office? Like Beth?” he exclaimed. It was apparently a revelation.) By the time we’d reached the Thomas Circle neighborhood, where Beth used to work at HRC, his energy was flagging and Beth was pushing him along on his scooter more and more often. Finally, the parade was over. After few blocks, on our way to the car, I noticed that most of the couples pushing strollers were straight and I felt a little shock of re-entry. At the car, I stripped the stroller of its beads and crepe paper so it would fold up properly.

A man in a car waiting at the light asked in a slightly disgruntled tone if we’d come from “a homosexual march.”

“Yes!” said Beth cheerily and hopped into the car. We divvied up the candy we’d gathered along the route and drove home with its sweetness lingering in our mouths.

All For The Love Of You

A Chronicle of Suburban Lesbian Family Life

Category Archives: Excursions