Halloween Snapshots

Posted on October 25, 2010 by Steph

Our weekends have been packed this month. After Crow Teepee Weekend, there was Crow Vision Quest Shield Weekend, and this past weekend–Crow Governance and Social Structure Power Point Presentation Weekend. And of course, we’ve been engaged in Halloween preparations and Beth has been working at least several hours every weekend (and will continue to do so until her union’s phone banking drive is over in early November).

Two weekends ago, we trekked out to Potomac Vegetable Farms in Northern Virginia (http://www.potomacvegetablefarms.com/), our traditional source of pumpkins for jack-o-lanterns and soup. It was an all-day outing, also involving a trip to Michael’s craft store for shield and Halloween costume supplies, lunch at Noodles and Company, pastries from an Italian bakery and a trip to Lake Fairfax Park (http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/lakefairfax/) where the kids amused themselves running around, rolling down a big hill and playing on a tiny beach at the canoe-launching area. It was a mild, sunny day, perfect for spending the day outdoors. The trees were just starting to show some fall color, especially at the tops.

The next Friday, June and I got into the Halloween spirit by hanging the little ghosts in our dogwood tree, arranging the skeleton that seems to emerge from the lawn and hanging the giant cobweb and spider from the porch. Later in the day a package arrived with June’s costume–she’s going to be Tiana from The Princess and the Frog (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6DmEgtibOg). There was also a raven with light-up eyes for our Halloween candy table, and best of all, a combination coffin with skeleton/fog machine. You simply must see it for yourself:

Saturday we baked Halloween cookies. While we were at Michael’s the weekend before and Noah was taking a long, long, long time to select the materials for his shield and costume, we placated June by letting her pick out some hot pink tempera paint and a set of twenty Halloween cookie cutters in the shapes of ghosts, tombstones, coffins, cats, bats, pieces of candy corn, witch’s hats, etc. So now we had to make cookies. They came out very nicely. Beth did a really great job mixing the colors for the frosting to June’s exact specifications. Because the dough had to chill and then the cookies had to cool before frosting, this was another nearly all-day affair.

That evening we followed up the cookie extravaganza by carving our jack-o-lanterns after a dinner of homemade pumpkin soup. June wanted a trumpet on hers (yes, a trumpet—we don’t know why); Noah chose to carve a pattern of a pile of pumpkins onto his pumpkin (it’s kind of a meta-jack-o-lantern); I chose a ghost, and Beth did the headless horseman. We used a kit with templates to tape to the pumpkins and they all came out well except mine. While I was trying to punch the ghost’s mouth out, I broke the whole specter out of the mostly carved pumpkin. I patched it up with toothpicks as best I could and decided it was Jacob Marley. The toothpicks, which show, are his chains. Anyway, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. I have no good explanation for the single eye. It’s a Cyclops-Jacob Marley mash-up, I guess.

The day was pretty much everything June had been not so patiently anticipating for the week between the weekend we acquired the pumpkins and cookie cutters and the weekend we put them to use. When I tucked her in Saturday night, I said, “You had an exciting day today.”

With a little intake of breath, she said, “I made cookies! I carved a pumpkin!” And then almost immediately, she fell asleep.

On Sunday Beth spent much of the day at her computer and so did Noah. He was working on his Power Point presentation. He wants to show it off to all of you, so here it is:

The Crow project is almost over. He’s writing the culminating five-paragraph essay at school. It’s supposed to be finished next week (unless they get another extension on it) and I think that will be it. He’s learned a lot, but I think he’s ready to move on to the next thing.

After dinner Beth and Noah got to work on his Halloween costume. Noah’s never been one for store-bought costumes; I think his last one was the tiger costume he wore when he was two. This year he’s going as a question mark. Beth and Noah cut a question mark out of poster board (a shade of dark blue Noah chose because he thought it looked the most mysterious of all the blues available at Michael’s, and believe me, he gave this question a lot of thought). Then they attached the dot to the main part of the mark with some fishing line. They haven’t decided how to attach it to him, but I’m sure they will figure something out over the next few days.

Through all the bustle of school projects and holiday preparations of the past couple weeks, I’ve been seeing our family life through a new lens. After years of consideration, my sister started the adoption process as a single mom. She hopes to adopt two sisters. Last month she attended a weekend-long parenting workshop for prospective adoptive parents and she’s starting the three-month home study phase now. She also joined Facebook recently, so we’re in closer touch about the daily minutiae of our lives than we had been. It’s been tremendous fun but I sometimes wonder what she makes of all the photos and the little complaints and celebrations of my kids she now sees on a daily basis. Does it make her more impatient for her own family or does it fill her with happy anticipation (or the occasional moment of trepidation)? I’m impatient, too, to see her snapshots of my nieces carving pumpkins, decorating Christmas trees, dyeing Easter eggs, or twining crepe paper into the spokes of their bikes for 4th of July parades. In fact, I can hardly wait.

Rites of Spring

Posted on April 5, 2010 by Steph

Spring has now unwrapped the flow’rs,
Day is fast reviving,
Life in all her growing pow’rs,
To’rds the light is striving.
Gone the iron touch of cold,
Winter time and frost time
Seedlings working through the mould,
Now wake up for lost time.

From “The Flower Carol,” Folk Song
http://books.google.com/books?id=7zF6mDo_GJgC&pg=PA59&dq=jean+ritchie+flower+carol&cd=1#v=onepage&q=jean%20ritchie%20flower%20carol&f=false

April Fools Day
No one played any April Fools jokes on me this year but the representative from Washington Gas might have thought I was playing one on him when I called to report a gas leak in our basement that turned out to be…nothing.

Thursday morning I was putting a load of laundry in the dryer when it wouldn’t start. A half hour later I was back in the basement when I thought I smelled a faint odor of gas near the dryer. I called the emergency line and took June out to play in the yard while we waited for someone to come check out the situation. We had to wait about an hour and while I was sitting and watching June collect the tiny white wildflowers in the yard, I noticed the grass was starting to get long so I decided to give the lawn its first mowing of the year. I got the front and side yards done and pruned the butterfly bush, which suffered a lot snapped branches when it was buried under three feet of snow back in February.

Around noon I proposed a picnic lunch to June and right around then the service rep showed up. I took him down to the basement. As we approached the dryer I noticed the smell was completely gone. He turned on his meter, which detected nothing. He checked all around the basement and found nothing. Then he left and though he was very professional and told me to call again if I smelled gas again, I couldn’t help feeling a little foolish.

I should mention a peculiar thing about myself here. I sometimes smell things that aren’t there. It happened most often in my late twenties and it was usually pleasant smells like baking cookies. It still happens occasionally but not often and since the dryer was broken and I was under the impression it was a gas dryer (turns out it’s electric) it seemed logical and it never occurred to me it might be one of my olfactory hallucinations.

June was still excited about the picnic so I went through with it. I made a pitcher of lemonade (“the bestest lemonade in the world” June told me), laid a beach towel out on the lawn and we ate vegetarian salami, American cheese, saltines and sliced strawberries amid the damp clothes hanging on the drying rack and draped over the slide, the soccer net and our lawn furniture.

There were errands I’d planned for that morning that didn’t get done but I did get an hour and a half outside on a warm, sunny day, a half-mowed lawn and two loads of laundry with that incomparable dried-outside smell. Maybe I wasn’t so foolish after all.

Good Friday
“Is the beach talking to you?” Beth asked me. We had just gotten back into the car after a pit stop at for lunch at the Taco Bell near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.

“Yes,” I answered.

“”What is it saying?” she wanted to know.

“Why on earth did you take that job?” I said. We were headed to Rehoboth for weekend getaway in the middle of Noah’s week and a half long spring break, but I would need to spend a few hours of it at the computer working on an article for Sara about an enzyme derived from fermented soybeans that has cardiovascular benefits. I’d hoped to have it mostly finished before we left, but due to the cats keeping me up half the night howling one night and only being able to find a sitter for one morning when I hoped for two, I’d only gotten about a third of the way through it and Sara needed my draft by Monday.

We arrived at our hotel around 4:00. There was a hold up getting into our room, but by 4:45 the kids and I were on the beach making sand castles. June preferred to decorate hers with shells while Noah elected to tunnel under his until they collapsed. He has loved doing this for years, ever since he learned it was an authentic medieval siege technique.

The last time we came to the beach in April it was so cold the kids wore their winter coats, but it was sunny and almost 70 degrees and we were all in bare feet. The warm sand felt good under my feet. Even the shocking little frisson of the frigid water felt good, too, as I fetched bucket after bucket full of water for the kids. I almost never feel so alive and present in my body as I do at the beach.

After a visit to Candy Kitchen (Noah got gummy teeth; June got a foot-shaped lollipop—what’s up with the body parts, kids?) and a pizza dinner, we bathed the kids and put them to bed. I slipped down to the hotel lounge for a half hour’s work on the article and then the sea called me and I answered.

A fog had fallen and the wind was whipping it around the beach in tatters. The air was cold and wet. Even in corduroys and a fleece jacket I was soon chilled and my hair hung damp around my face. I watched the waves crash over the remains of someone else’s sand castle and then, thrilled and joyful, I walked back to the hotel.

It was a Good Friday indeed.

Let’s Go Fly a Kite
We saw the Easter Bunny on Rehoboth Avenue after breakfast on Saturday, or rather a person in an Easter Bunny costume, as June was careful to correct me when I said, “Look! It’s the Easter Bunny.” Much to my surprise, she went right up to the Bunny and selected a Starburst from the basket of candy and even posed for a picture with the big rodent.

Beth took the kids to play miniature golf while I holed up in the room and worked. In the afternoon, after June’s nap, we took June’s new Barbie kite to the beach. Yes, you read that right. One of June’s friends gave it to her for her birthday. The picture on it could be worse—it’s just her head, but still… Barbie has breached the perimeter.

The morning had been cold and foggy so we’d put off the kite-flying expedition until afternoon, hoping the fog would burn off, but it didn’t. Still, Beth got the job done, getting the kite into the air. I never thought I’d see Beth flying a Barbie kite on the beach, but now I have. The amusement factor made it almost worth owning a Barbie kite. Almost.

Easter
The kids awoke Easter Sunday to find the Bunny had left two chocolate bunnies (milk chocolate for June and white chocolate for Noah) on the bedside table in the hotel room. It was a down payment on the candy they’d find in their baskets once we got home.

The day was warm and sunny. June and I played for hours on the beach and took a long walk down the boardwalk. She tested my hypothesis that no matter how many buckets of water I carried to her she could not make a puddle that would stay. She rode the car with the clown on the boardwalk that used to scare her. She made multiple attempts to talk me into another visit to Candy Kitchen, each as if the previous conversation had never taken place. She admired the “eagles,” as she calls them.

I could tell when church let out because all of a sudden the beach and boardwalk filled up with little girls in fancy dresses and boys in polo shirts and khakis or madras shorts. All the people in their finery gave the scene a festive feel. It was the kind of day when cold weather was such a recent memory and warmer weather seemed so imminent, that we saw people in everything from winter coats to bikinis. The sartorial diversity was a truly glorious thing.

We left Rehoboth after a boardwalk lunch and drove home. The first hour of the ride was pleasantly quiet. June was sleeping and Noah was reading Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. We met up with YaYa and Aunt Carole in Silver Spring. They’ve come for a brief visit to see the cherry blossoms. We ate on the patio at Eggspectations (http://www.eggspectations.com/usa/index.html). They kept getting our orders wrong, but we made do with what we got and when they comped us a free dessert and brought the wrong one, it was just too funny to be annoying. (I did make them bring the right one, though, because it was a slice of Smith Island cake—http://www.smithislandbakingco.com/– a Maryland tradition I’ve heard of but never sampled and which I’d spied in the dessert case when we arrived.)

We all came back to the house to dye Easter eggs and eat Easter candy. YaYa and Carole talked about how they loved the simplicity of dyeing eggs and discussed plans to make their own dye from onion skins one year. They left for their hotel before we applied the stickers with eyes, noses and mouths and taped little hats to the tops of our now not so simple colored eggs.

We got the kids bathed and in bed. Beth fell asleep in her clothes on the bed before I got June settled down. It had been an eventful weekend.

Loveliest of Trees, The Cherry Now
I love the cherry blossoms, enough to go every year despite the hassles, and there are hassles no matter how you go. Parking is hard to come by, the shuttles from the remote parking lots are not particularly convenient and going by Metro adds a lot of time to an already long trip. We decided on Metro this year but it was clear from our discussion of logistics that morning that there was no way we could get home by noon, which is the latest I like to get June home from a morning outing.

We left the house at 8:15 drove to Silver Spring and met YaYa and Carole at their hotel. From there we walked to Starbucks, picked up some snacks and boarded the Metro. It was already 10:15 when we arrived at the Tidal Basin. June was complaining she was tired before we even arrived. We’ve been stroller-free for about two months (the big storm that left sidewalks impassable for weeks was the impetus) and on some days it’s been harder than others. I had a feeling this was going to be one of those days. I told Beth I didn’t think we were going to make it all the way around the perimeter. We rested and ate for ten minutes or so by the water before we starting walking. We set a goal of reaching the FDR memorial, which was slightly less than half way around.

Noah had a map and pretended to be a tour guide as he read to us about the points of interest we passed along the way. June kept stopping to collect petals from the ground. When YaYa and Carole planned their trip, the peak blooming period was supposed to extend into this week, but warm weather caused the blossoms to open early and we’d missed the peak. More than half the blossoms were already off the trees, but it was still lovely. It’s always lovely. We admired the Jefferson Memorial across the water and posed by the stone lantern. As we approached the FDR memorial, it was eleven and June was really dragging. We didn’t go through the whole thing because it was so late, but the kids enjoyed seeing the waterfalls.

On the way back I picked June up and carried her every time we got significantly behind the others. I would carry her until we caught up and then I’d put her down again. We proceeded this way, with June whining, “I want my nap!” over and over again until Beth made threats against her Easter candy if she continued. She continued to whimper from time to time, but she didn’t say the word nap again after that. As we passed the Department of Agriculture, we saw a landscaping crew digging up some tulips that hadn’t even finished blooming yet. Who knows why? The way they are constantly changing the plantings down on the mall is irritatingly wasteful. Anyway, the gardener must have thought the same thing because he offered a bunch of tulips (with two bulbs still attached) to June. June ran to show them to Beth, arriving before I could with the explanation and Beth gasped, thinking (naturally) that June had yanked them out of the ground. We carried them home to put it water and I will try planting the two bulbs in the yard. We have crocuses, daffodils, hyacinth, irises and tiger lilies but no tulips, so it was a fortuitous gift.

Our first train was delayed for ten or fifteen minutes by a sick passenger on another train ahead of us on the track so it was a relief to finally get moving and to transfer to the second train, where we could sit down and rest our weary feet. I was positive June would fall asleep on the train and ruin her nap but some how she stayed awake not only on both trains but in the car, too, though it was a close thing. In fact, when Beth asked me if she was asleep and I said no, June insisted that she was and she didn’t seem to be playing a game.

We got home at 1:15 and June dawdled over lunch so it was nearly two by the time she fell asleep. She then slept for almost two hours. I was intending to lie down for just a little while and then get up and work but I fell asleep and slept for almost a half hour. Spring can be exhilarating, but it’s also exhausting.

Inside the Snow Globe: A Countdown to Normal

Posted on February 18, 2010 by Steph

Friday: Normal Minus Five

On Friday, Beth went back to work, after four days at home. The kids were still home and June’s drama class was cancelled, but I was determined to attempt something close to our normal routine. Our old Friday morning routine before drama class started up was a leisurely morning at home, laundry and Sesame Street, followed by a walk to Starbucks. I knew the walk would be a challenge and Beth thought we should take a bus, but I walk a lot and this snow will be weeks melting so I wanted to get a lay of the land, on a low pressure outing without needing to arrive anywhere at any specific time.

With June in the stroller it’s fifteen minutes to Starbucks and fifteen minutes back, making it a forty-five to sixty-minute outing, depending on time spent inside. If she rides her tricycle or scooter it’s more like an hour and a half. So taking that into account, I think the fact that we walked there — sometimes on neatly shoveled walks, sometimes on narrow paths pedestrians had packed down on unshoveled walks, sometimes on the street, sometimes scaling the glacier-like peaks at intersections– in two hours and five minutes is not so bad. And we even stopped at the grocery store on the way home. I intended to pick up some Valentine candy for everyone to share, but somehow we ended up leaving with a heart-shaped box of candy, a heart-shaped balloon, a vase filled with candy and a tiny balloon and one Valentine card (for June—she picked it out herself, being a little unclear on the concept of Valentines). And June was crying at the register because I drew the line there.

Of course, we lost the balloon on the way home. It was a Mylar helium-filled balloon, the kind that comes with a weight on the end of the ribbon. I figured if June let go, it would be too weighed down to escape. But after a while she got tired of carrying it and handed it to me. As I walked under some low-hanging branches, it got entangled and the ribbon came untied. I turned to find it about a foot above my reach. A tall man or a very tall woman could have easily rescued it. But there were no tall men or very tall women in evidence. As I considered my options a breeze parted the branches and the balloon drifted up into the wild blue yonder. June started to cry, a keening sob, occasionally punctuated with the single word “Balloon!” She kept it up all the way home, even as I lifted her over snow banks and backtracked a quarter of a block to retrieve a lost mitten. It was the low point of the trip, worse than when the man who was shoveling out his driveway yelled at us for walking by him too slowly and delaying his ability to dump snow onto the street. So, I’d have to say it was only a partially successful outing. I did get a latte and we all got some sunshine and exercise. Beth spent two hours on a windy Metro platform that morning as train after overloaded train went by, so that puts things in perspective.

Noah spent a lot of time outdoors that day, exploring the wild new terrain of our yard and working on reconstructing his sled run. In the afternoon, he made Valentines for his classmates and helped June make Valentines for hers. He actually did most of the lettering on her cards (I did a few) and he drew all the hearts for June to color in and he was much more patient than I would have been with her often unclear instructions and teary recriminations when these instructions were not followed to the last detail. I feel he should be awarded some kind of medal for his participation in the project. He’s such a good brother sometimes. So when they disagreed about dinner music—he wanted Blue Moo (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Blue-Moo/Sandra-Boynton/e/9780761147756) and she wanted Wheels Go ‘Round (http://www.kindermusik.com/shop/product.aspx?pid=3-10-90040&cid=1100)—I went with his choice.

Saturday: Normal Minus Four

On Saturday morning, the Valentine-making bug had not left June. But she did not want to make them herself and she had run out of people willing to help her. This resulted in crying. I muttered something about never celebrating another holiday again. June heard me and was stricken. She has a birthday coming up next month. I had to promise her that yes she would indeed have cake and presents and a party for her birthday.

Clearly it was time for me to get out of the house without children. Fortunately, Beth and I had a date scheduled, our second in the space of about a month. We’d been unable to get a sitter for Valentine’s Day and decided the day before was just as good. We were planning to leave at three for a movie (Crazy Heart), coffee and dinner at Mandalay (http://www.mandalayrestaurantcafe.com/), a Burmese restaurant in Silver Spring and one of our favorites. Since June usually wakes from her nap between two-thirty and three I expected a nice long mental break. Her nap started early though and was quite short. The disproportionate depth of my despair when she woke at one-thirty and I found myself alone with her and needing to fill an hour and a half (Beth had taken Noah to his swim lesson, which—hooray!—was not cancelled) was instructive. Since becoming a stay-at-home mom, I never get enough time alone, but I am operating on a much thinner margin right now. And what I miss just as much, if not more, is time alone with Beth, which is always in short supply.

So the date was fun. The movie was reasonably good and dinner was delicious. We ran into another lesbian couple we know at the movie and then again at coffee portion of the date. Their older son was in Noah’s class at the Purple School and their younger son just finished preschool last year. We didn’t talk long, but it was nice to get a dispatch from the outside world, to be reminded that the world has not shrunk to our little family of four.

Sunday: Normal Minus Three

“Is today a regular day?” June wanted to know when she woke up. Beth wasn’t sure what she meant and said yes. June was exasperated, “But it’s the day after yesterday!” she said. We told her the day before that the next day would be Valentine’s Day. Once that was cleared up she had me dress her in her “holiday dress,” the green velvet jumper with rosebuds on the bodice. We took to calling it that so she would wear it for Thanksgiving and Christmas and not require separate dresses for separate holidays, but now she will use any semblance of a holiday as an excuse to wear it. She wore it to school on the Red Gingko’s birthday because birthdays are holidays. And Valentine’s Day is a holiday, too, she reasoned. I’ve never considered Valentine’s Day a dress-up occasion, especially if you intend to spend it entirely at home and at the grocery store, but apparently June does.

At breakfast the kids discussed their favorite holidays. Noah said he liked his birthday best. June said she liked them all. I felt a little guilty for my anti-holiday tirade the day before, but I was still unable to maintain a spirit of cheerfulness as the morning wore on.

“I need another date,” I told Beth after she found me crying in the study around ten in the morning. She was getting ready to take the kids grocery shopping and Noah had been looking for his boots for a long while. Every time I suggested a new place to look, he asked, “Have you seen them there?” in a snotty tone until I snapped and yelled, “Noah, stop saying that!” I hate it when I yell at them, but I do sometimes and more often now than when Noah was little. I just run out of patience more quickly these days.

Beth pointed out that Noah didn’t seem to have suffered any lasting damage. It’s actually pretty hard to hurt his feelings, while it’s quite easy to hurt June’s. She had spent much of the morning whimpering about some mysterious slight she refused to divulge. Beth also said, by way of cheering me up, “You get to go to the dentist on Tuesday.” She was only partly kidding. These days a dentist visit to get an impression taken for a crown qualifies as me time.

Eventually, Beth found Noah’s boots (they were in the study with me ironically) and they left. While they were gone I cleaned house and wrapped the kids’ Valentines presents and arranged the wrapped presents, cards and candy on the dining room table. They returned shortly before noon with a pink, heart-shaped Hello Kitty balloon and heart-shaped shortbread cookies with pink and red sprinkles. And while this was not strictly speaking a Valentine’s present, Beth bought a Pepperidge Farm lemon cake because she knew I’ve had a hankering for one for several weeks and she saw one at the grocery store for the first time since I mentioned it. I put it in the freezer for after the Valentine’s treats are gone.

June was simply delighted with everything. She loved her card (the one she picked out herself); she loved her books (Happy Valentine’s Day, Mouse! and Maisy’s Valentine Sticker Book) and thanked me multiple times. She wanted to try all the treats. She had made Valentines for all of us. She had drawn a box of Mike and Ikes on Beth’s because Beth often buys them for her; mine had a heart colored blue, because blue is my favorite color; and Noah’s had a stick figure carrying a bouquet. June’s drawing has recently and suddenly become representative and all she wants to do some days is draw and paint. I have a thick folder of her drawings just from the past few weeks. I’ve been meaning to sort through them and pick a few to save, but I’m pretty sure the blue heart is a keeper, even though there are a lot of them in there that are more detailed or technically adept. It’s the first Valentine she ever made for me.

Noah seemed indifferent to his book, Magic Treehouse #43 Leprechauns in Late Winter, which was a surprise. I’m no fan of this series, but he has loved it since he was five. (He started listening to it on tape before he could read.) Even more puzzlingly, as they are well below his reading level, he then said that he never understands them. I wrote it off to the crankiness that is slowly enveloping all of us with each passing day of cabin fever. Later he went to bed and tried to take a nap, which made me wonder if he was sick, but he said he was just tired.

After June’s nap, the kids were tearing around the house, playing with the Hello Kitty balloon. Beth warned them several times, but they chose to ignore her words of wisdom and soon June was crying because the balloon had a big gash in the front and the helium was all out of it. I taped it up so it wouldn’t rip more, but it no longer floats.

Suddenly turning on the Olympics seemed like a good idea. And that’s pretty much what the kids did for the rest of the afternoon and evening. Noah’s interest in the Games is largely technical– how do the cameras follow a skier down the hill, he wants to know—and personal—he likes the features about the athletes, particularly if there’s discussion of gruesome accidents in the athlete’s past (and no, he has not seen the footage of the luger who died). June just likes to watch people swooshing down snow-covered hills and jumping and twirling on the ice. Most of the figure skating is on past the kids’ bedtimes, but the one pair she saw skating riveted her.

Monday: Normal Minus Two

I woke thinking about my father. It was the one-month anniversary of his death and according to my original travel plans, I was supposed to be visiting him over President’s Day weekend. I’m pretty sure that part of my inability to cope with the disruption of this storm comes from feeling emotionally wrung out and near the edge already.

Right before breakfast June finally told us why she’d been crying on and off for hours the day before. Recently, Beth and I have been trying to cut back a little on Noah’s monster breakfasts. He has always woken hungry and eaten his biggest meal of the day then, but because of his sensory issues he’s not always aware of when he’s not hungry anymore and we suspected he was only eating so much out of habit, especially on the weekends when he’ll eat two waffles and then ask for a bowl of cereal and then another. Anyway, he’s been complaining in a joking sort of way that we want him to shrivel up and die and sometimes we joke back that yes, that’s our evil plot. Anyway, June heard this and took it seriously and was convinced we wanted Noah to die. She was relieved to hear this was not the case. Poor June! She’s not even four and often seems to have the weight of the world on her little shoulders. I worry about that.

“Today is going to be boring,” Noah declared soon after that was cleared up.

Beth surprised him and me by saying, “Do you want to come to work with me?” (She would normally have President’s Day off, but because her office was closed four days last week, they cancelled the day off.) It took him a while to answer, but he decided to go. I wasn’t sure whether this would make my day easier or harder. It would be quieter certainly, but as much as they bicker, the children do play together a lot and now I’d have to entertain June by myself all day long. It was different, though, and we all could use a change of pace.

Faced with a different day than the one I thought I was having, I wondered what to do with June. I’d been thinking of just staying home all day, but without Noah, this no longer seemed like a good idea. And while I have standing emergency back-up plans for some days of the week, Monday is not one of them. Before June was in school, I used to take her to the Community Playtime sponsored by the rec center on Mondays, but I never really liked it much. It’s noisy and chaotic and I’m too shy to talk much to other parents without a more organized activity going on. Plus I had no idea what the sidewalks are like on the long, steep hill we’d have to climb to get there.

Then I decided I would try to catch up on the newsletter clipping I do for Sara while June watched Sesame Street and then we could build an outing around going to the post office to mail the packet. Mayorga (www.mayorgacoffee.com) has re-opened at a location in that direction so I was pleased with this plan. Then a few minutes into my work, I realized—President’s Day. The post office would be closed. It’s so hard to keep track of why the children are not at school when they never go. I went ahead and finished the work, getting everything into an envelope, addressed and ready to go so I could take it with me and mail it on my way to the dentist.

When June’s show was over, she came into the study. I told her I thought we should go somewhere. She brightened. Then I told her I wasn’t sure where to go and asked if she had any ideas. She piped right up, “Starbucks!” For once, I didn’t particularly want to go there. I asked her if she remembered how long it took to walk there on Friday and if she was really sure. Yes! Yes! She was sure. She wanted to go. Could we go now?

So without a stop at the grocery store, this outing takes an hour and forty-five minutes. It would probably go more quickly if June would walk on the sidewalks that are cleared, but she prefers to trudge through the snow. We stopped at the bridge over Long Branch creek and threw snowballs into the coffee-colored water. June was chatty. She asked if I thought the Yellow Gingko has ever watched Sesame Street. I said I bet she had. “Yellow Gingko is cool,” June said. “You are not cool. You are interesting.” Then she paused and asked, “Are cool and interesting the same thing?” Not exactly, I allowed. But even though I am not as cool as her friend, she did tell me at two different points in the walk, “Mommy, I like being with you,” so that was nice. On the way home, she kept falling backwards into snow banks, seemingly on purpose, and closing her eyes.

“Are you tired?” I asked. She said yes. I suggested that home might be a better place for a nap and tugged her gently to her feet, only to watch her do it a few yards later. Finally, we got home, ate lunch, read a book and I put June down for her nap.

All the while I was keeping my eyes on the sky. Slow, sleet and rain were forecast, but when we’d set out on our walk at 10:45, the sky was mostly blue. It clouded over as we walked. And sometime between two and two-thirty, as June slept, it started to snow. I remembered something Beth said after the last snow. She said it was like being inside a snow globe that a giant child will not stop shaking. I even felt a little queasy watching it come down. Within an hour, even though the snow wasn’t even sticking to the streets or the sidewalks (and it never did), Montgomery County Public Schools announced a two-hour delayed opening. This meant Noah would go to school, but June would not. Normal had been pushed back another day.

Tuesday: Normal Minus One

I left for my 11:30 dentist appointment at 8:50. I did not really expect it to take me over two and a half hours to travel from Takoma to my Dupont Circle area dentist, but I simply could not wait to get out of the house. Public transportation is still sluggish, especially the buses, but by 10:15 I’d mailed my packages and was ensconced with a mocha, the Health and Science section of the Post and a collection of Alice Munro stories. Life was good for an hour or so.

I was home with my temporary crown applied and my mouth half numbed by 1:30. I was trying to decide whether to nap in my room or June’s when she met me at the door. “June, you’re still up!” I said. No, Beth informed me, the nap was over. That was a disappointment, but it didn’t seem right to complain, after having cut out so early on a day when Beth was trying to get some work done at home.

We muddled through the afternoon. I read to June and helped her make meals for the castle people out of modeling clay. While the kids watched television, I got back on the exercise bike for the first time in longer than I want to admit. I made cauliflower-cabbage soup. I defrosted the lemon cake and we ate most of it, even though the Valentine’s sweets are not completely gone. I was in a celebratory mood. It was the eve of normalcy.

Wednesday: Normal!

Noah went to school. June went to school. I exhaled.

It was not exactly a normal day. Noah had after-school science, and then we had dinner at El Golfo (http://elgolforestaurant.com/Home_Page.php) with several nursery school families in honor of the boy formerly known as the Grasshopper and his family (they moved to Seattle and were back East for a visit) and after that Beth had a nursery school board meeting. June and I walked a lot. As the sidewalks are not passable by stroller yet, June had to walk to and from her school and then to and from Noah’s school for a total of almost two and a half hours walking in one day. The day was stuffed full, so full that Noah had to do his language arts homework at the restaurant. But it was better than the alternative. We are out of the snow globe, for now.

That evening, I gathered up all the sympathy cards I’ve received, read them one more time and put most of them in the recycling. I put the rest, along with the blue heart, in a box of special papers.

Meteorology is not at its most accurate this far out, but they are anticipating several more storms this winter, including one on Monday, June’s next day of school and the day before the newly re-scheduled Geo-Bowl. If that happens, I am thinking of hopping a freight train south.

Tidings

Posted on December 29, 2009 by Steph

God rest ye merry, gentlemen
Let nothing you dismay
Remember, Christ, our Savior
Was born on Christmas day
To save us all from Satan’s power
When we were gone astray
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy

From “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen,” traditional Christmas carol

I could bring you tidings of comfort and joy from our Christmas at my mother and stepfather’s house. My sister and her boyfriend Dune came east for the first Christmas in four years so we had a full house. We made gingerbread cookies on the morning of Christmas Eve, which June decorated so thoroughly with raisins that Dune asked her if she’d like some gingerbread with her raisins. That afternoon we went to Longwood Gardens (http://www.longwoodgardens.org/) and toured the conservatory, which was full of poinsettias and Christmas trees as well as the usual flowers and plants, and we walked through gardens at dusk, winding our way through the trees strung with Christmas lights and stopping to watch the light show at the fountain while music from The Nutcracker played and the lights turned the snow every color of the rainbow while we stomped our feet to keep them warm.

On Christmas morning the kids were thrilled with their presents. Santa came through with the pink princess tent and Clara (who is now called Violet) was waiting for June inside it when she came down the stairs. June’s been toting the doll around with her and sleeping with it ever since. June was almost comically gracious while we opened presents, telling each person who gave her a gift, “It’s just what I wanted,” as she opened the stuffed ladybug, unicorn slippers, magnetic dress-up doll, etc. Noah, remembering the pirate treasure hunts Jim used to organize for him when he was younger, organized his own for Jim, complete with a rhyming poem to lead him to the treasure he’d buried in the woods near their house. (I helped him pick a hiding spot and gave him some advice on the poem when he was worried about the meter being off.) Noah got several games for Christmas and enjoyed playing Sleeping Queens (http://www.gamewright.com/gamewright/index.php?section=games&page=game&show=140) with Beth and Quirkle (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/25669/qwirkle) with Sara and Beth in the days immediately after Christmas. He’s looking forward to jumping on his mini-trampoline, once we set it up, and to playing with the baking-soda-and-vinegar-fueled rocket and making pizza with the pizzeria kit. We had a delicious dinner and June charmed my mom by telling her that the table was “beautiful” when she saw it set with the tablecloth, pink candles and pine needle-and-flower centerpiece. The children were preternaturally well behaved, leading my mom and Sara to ask why on earth I say they fight all the time and June has temper tantrums (though Dune did witness one when a raisin fell off a piece of gingerbread).

I’m not going to write at length about any of that, though, partly because I wasn’t there for a lot of it, and partly because I have other tidings, sadder ones. The day after Christmas, on a cold, rainy morning, I took the train up to New York to visit my father, bearing presents from my sister and myself and from the kids and some of the freshly baked gingerbread. Beth and I had discussed going up together with the kids, but since it would be the first time I’ve seen him since I learned of his cancer diagnosis in late August, I decided it would be better to go alone so we could spend some time together without the distraction of the kids. My sister spent Thanksgiving with him at his vacation home in Key West, so I knew he was not well, but soon after I arrived, Dad took me to his bedroom and told me that his cancer has returned and it’s more widespread than before. It’s back in his throat where it started, and it’s also in lungs and, well, it doesn’t look good.

We all thought he had it beat, so I’m still reeling from the news. When he told me I was too shocked to even cry, though I’ve cried plenty in the past few days. I spent a lot of that day staring out the window at his neighbor’s Christmas lights and at the people walking through the streets of the Upper West Side, four stories down, when we weren’t talking, or trying to read or eating (he ate a misshapen gingerbread man with relish, being sure to tell Ann that June made it). I found myself looking frequently at photographs of my children—on our Christmas card on my dad’s bedside table or in framed photos on the mantle in the living room. It was comforting to see their faces looking back at me. I know people my age who have lost parents, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking he’s too young—only sixty six—and I’m too young—forty two—for this to be happening, but of course, we aren’t. No one is too young.

Not that he’s dying right away. In about a week and a half, he and Ann are heading for Key West, where they will be spending the rest of the winter and part of the spring. It will be a better place for him than their apartment in New York, a fourth-floor walkup. He can sit in the sun and swim in their pool. They have friends nearby. I’m glad they’re going, although it will make it harder for me to see him. I’m considering a short visit and my sister, who’s childless and self-employed, is considering a longer one.

The next day was warmer and sunny. I left about a half hour earlier than I needed to so I could walk around and get some fresh air before descending into the subway. I ended up sitting on a bench in the little park outside the 72nd Street subway stop, absently sipping a coffee I’d picked up along the way, telling myself he’s not dying right now. We could have years even, time enough for the kids to get to know their smart, funny, interesting grandfather better than they do now and for him to get to know them.

Overall, though, I am more dismayed than comforted or joyful right now.

Holly Jolly

Posted on December 19, 2009 by Steph

The Radio Shack receipt was for $38.87. I stared at it uncomprehendingly. The remote-control trucks June had selected for Noah’s Christmas present were $14.99, a surprisingly good price, and when the clerk suggested batteries, I agreed, not sure what kinds we had at home. Almost immediately I was chastising myself for saying yes. Surely there’s a huge mark-up on batteries at Radio Shack. But $38.87? The batteries couldn’t be that expensive. Then I noticed the trucks had rung up at $24.99.

I told the clerk the shelf tag said $14.99 and added that the trucks had been sitting behind that shelf tag for at least two days. I knew because I’d been in the store by myself on Wednesday morning while June was at school, looking for appropriate gifts to suggest to her. The clerk was unmoved. He didn’t even apologize for the shelving error. (If it was an error, I thought–I was getting irate and uncharitable.)

I felt a deep weariness settle over me. It had taken forever to get rung up despite the fact that the line was short. Before the price dispute, the clerk had been chatty and over-friendly, full of tips on how to manipulate my husband into getting me what I want for Christmas (perhaps a new computer from Radio Shack?). I never know how to come out in situations like this and sometimes I just don’t. Eventually I lay my left hand with its bare ring finger conspicuously on the counter, hoping he’d see it, take me for a straight single mom and just be quiet already. But he didn’t.

I was not going to walk out of the store with almost $40 worth of trucks and batteries as a present to Noah from June. That much was clear. Most of the presents I’ve been purchasing on her behalf have been very inexpensive, most close to $5, so $15 was a stretch as it was. I asked the clerk to refund my money and he did. We went back to the shelves and I gave June a few more options. She refused them all. She liked the trucks. She didn’t like the blue car or the silver car or the little cars that ran around a track. I gave up and we left the store empty-handed.

I thought she might be more amenable to my position after a snack, so we went to Starbucks next. As her spoon scraped the bottom her yogurt parfait, I broached the subject. Would she like to go back to the store and reconsider? No, she would not. I wondered desperately how we ever got through the beginning gift-giving stage with Noah, when the child is old enough to have some responsibility for reciprocating gifts but too young to make rational choices. The problem is I want it all: I want her to pick gifts (or at least pick from several choices I give her), to pick gifts the recipients would like (had I been willing to buy a light-up Cinderella figurine for Noah we could have gotten out of there with a gift) and to pick affordable presents, too. It’s too much to orchestrate, but I wasn’t sure what needed to give.

“Where are we going now?” June wanted to know as I pushed the stroller away from Starbucks.

“Home, I guess,” I said. “I don’t have any other ideas. We’ll have to think of something later because if we don’t, Noah won’t have any presents from you and that would be sad.”

“But I got him a book,” June piped up.

“What book?” I said. Did Beth help her pick a book for Noah? But she would have mentioned it if she had, because she knew I was taking June to get his present that morning.

“The book I got him at the store at the beach,” June said impatiently. Then it hit me. The limerick book! I even blogged about it not two weeks ago. I didn’t know whether to be hugely relieved or irritated I’d made not one but two completely unnecessary trips to this shopping center looking for a gift I had already bought. I settled on relieved. I still had two more “from June” gifts to buy for other people so one down was good, no matter how it came to pass.

We came home, I ate lunch (June passed, having just eaten that big yogurt) and I put June down for her nap. The babysitter arrived while she was sleeping and I set off for Noah’s school’s Holiday Sing. That morning he’d been excited about it and practicing a selection of the Kwanza, Hanukah and Christmas songs. (He also invented a pirate version of “Holly Jolly Christmas” for his own and June’s amusement. Sample lyric: “Ho, Ho, the mistletoe, hung where ye can see. Somebody waits for ye. Kiss her once for me!”)

As I walked along the side of the school, I could hear the pianist practicing “Holly Jolly Christmas.” I had a moment of panic, thinking what if it wasn’t practice. What if I had the time of the concert wrong? I knew “Holly Jolly Christmas” was the last song on the program. But when I arrived ten minutes before concert time, there were parents milling around and the multipurpose room (the cafeteria is often pressed into service as an auditorium so they call it the multipurpose room) was not even set up. I hadn’t missed a thing. Parents helped set up folding chairs in the back of the room, finishing just as the kids filed in. As I was waiting outside the room, I was happy to see Beth walk down the hall. I didn’t know if she would be able to make it.

“You made it,” said and then I saw her face. “What’s wrong?” I asked. There was a nursery school fundraising crisis involving addresses on letters that don’t line up with the windows in the envelopes. Plus she had been handed a huge unexpected project at work that might mean working on vacation next week. She was anxious and overwhelmed.

The sing-along was cute, as usual. I could tell Beth was distracted, though, and when Noah’s class came in we waved at him but he didn’t see us. I knew if he didn’t see us then, he never would because the 4th and 5th grade choir faces the audience but the rest of the kids sit on the floor and face the choir. I was sad about that. He always lights up when he sees us at school events. Telling him we were there later just isn’t the same.

We made it home before June woke from her nap. Beth spent the afternoon in a frantic effort to get letters re-printed while I watched the kids. Just before six, we piled into the car and drove to the community center for June’s school’s Solstice Party. We paraded from the Community Center to the library with the children all wearing paper crowns and holding their glowing, painted paper-wire-and-wood lanterns they made at school. (Noah, along with other older siblings, carried his old lantern.) We sang “This Little Light of Mine” as we marched. Inside the library we feasted on pizza, crudités, hummus, oranges and a wide variety of homemade sweets. Noah, June and I sat with the Yellow Gingko’s family. Beth sequestered herself in a corner, assembling the re-printed fundraising packets for people to collect at the end of the evening. I brought her a plate of food but she was afraid food wasn’t allowed in that room, so I took it away.

After we ate each class presented the teachers with gifts and there was a shadow puppet show (to celebrate shadow at this, the darkest time of the year). The Tracks class (four and five year olds) gathered behind the screen and held up their puppets as Lesley read a story about a magically expanding mitten that shelters a whole forest of animals. At one point the Red Maple (last year’s Caterpillar) rushed the stage (he wanted to see what was going on behind it) and he had to be snagged back by the Blue Gingko’s dad, who assured him it would be his turn to be in the puppet show next year. Next the classes gathered together and greeted the other classes. And then it was time to go home.

Of course, the evening wouldn’t have been complete without another snafu. Some people took the wrong packets with them on their way out. Beth was beyond frustrated.

But it was the eve of the biggest December snowfall in the history of the Washington region and Beth loves snow about as much as I love the beach. We woke this morning to seven inches of pristine, white snow. It snowed all day and by evening, we had eighteen and half inches on our patio table. Beth took the kids out to play and then Noah spent a good bit of the day sledding with Sasha’s family and then again in our backyard. June tramped around in snow up to her waist and enjoyed sledding down our little hill, crying “Again! Again! Again!” When she was too cold to continue, I snuggled with her under blankets and we read six of the seven Curious George stories in The Complete Adventures of Curious George. Later in the day, I took her out in the snow again. Beth designed and printed our holiday cards and heroically shoveled the walk (two times!). I made some very tasty bulgur burgers and roasted potatoes for dinner.

When I went into the kids’ room to tuck June in, I found her kneeling on the bed, looking out at the snow through parted curtains. Even with the frustrating shopping outing and mounting work and school committee stress, it was still a holly jolly two days.

You’d Better Not Cry, I’m Telling You Why

Posted on December 6, 2009 by Steph

You’d better watch out, you’d better not pout
You’d better not cry, I’m telling you why
Santa Claus is coming town

From “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” by Gillespie Coots
http://www.6lyrics.com/music/bruce_springsteen/lyrics/santa_claus_is_coming_to_town_coots_gillespie.aspx

“Don’t sit there!” June cried, as I started to slide into the seat next to her at the Taco Bell near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge late Friday afternoon. We were eating an early dinner en route to Rehoboth for our annual Christmas shopping trip.

I stood and stared at her, waiting for an explanation. “Lillian’s sitting there,” she said. Early in the drive, she’d informed us that her older sister Lillian, who is five years old, was sitting in the back seat, in between her and Noah. Noah has had the same imaginary mouse friend since he was three years old, but June’s imaginary friends come and go so quickly it’s hard to keep track of them. In fact, while we were at Taco Bell, she acquired two more sisters. One was named Sally and I can’t remember the baby’s name.

A classmate of hers has a baby brother on the way and June’s a bit put out that we refuse to supply her with a baby sibling as well. She seems to think the Yellow Gingko is getting an unfair advantage here. At least that baby is a boy because otherwise June would be even more jealous. She really wants a “she baby.” Along with June’s newfound attentiveness to gender norms has come a preference for all things female, the more insistently marked as female the better. The stuffed penguin with the ribbon on its head is better than the one with the Santa hat, for instance, because “it’s a girl and I like girls.”

We arrived at our hotel around 7:15. There was enough time to let the kids burn off some of their pent-up energy from the drive jumping on the beds. I was hoping by bedtime they’d be calm and sleepy so I could slip away for a walk on the beach. Silly me.

Well, they were in bed by 8:05, but the sleeping part wasn’t happening. We’d put them in one double bed, reserving the other one for ourselves. Noah and June have never slept in the same bed before and the novelty of the arrangement was exciting. So exciting June felt the need to poke Noah repeatedly, causing him to squeal and squirm and jump out of the bed from time to time. Around 8:30 I gave up trying to get them to sleep and I decided to leave for my walk. I told Beth she was authorized to separate them if she thought it was the only way to get them to sleep and to issue any consequences or enticements to sleep she thought might work. June started to cry as I left. Wincing with guilt, I ignored her and slipped out the door.

Even though we were in an oceanfront hotel, it was a ten-minute walk to the beach because the section of the boardwalk in front of the hotel is undergoing repairs and there’s no beach access for several blocks. Once I got to the boardwalk, I was surprised to see the colored lights that usually light up the boardwalk around Christmas were nowhere in evidence. Even worse, I didn’t see Santa’s house. Half the reason we come to Rehoboth in December is to see Santa in his natural habitat. Yes, our children believe (or believed in Noah’s case) that the only real Santa you see this time of year is the one at the Rehoboth boardwalk. If he wasn’t there, we’d be in trouble the next day.

I took a short walk on the beach, but I was too disturbed by the Santa problem to fully enjoy it. I decided to go back to Rehoboth Avenue and scout around. I tried the bandstand first, then the area in front of the huge Christmas tree. No Santa house. Just as I was about to give up I spied it. It was on the sidewalk in front of Grotto Pizza. Relieved, I checked his hours and found Santa would be receiving visitors starting at 3 p.m. Saturday.

I returned to the room at 9:15. I was sure Noah would be asleep by then but I wasn’t so sure about June. She’s been resisting bedtime the past few months and it would not be unusual for her to still be up at 9:15, even at home. I tried to enter the room as quietly as possible. Both Noah and June sat straight up in bed. I was back! Where had I been? Why did I take so long? Beth reported they’d consulted with each other and decided I was out buying them Christmas presents because there was no other explanation for such a lengthy absence. After they came to this conclusion, June composed and sang a ballad about how I’d left them and was never coming back. (Both of the children sing non-stop but whereas Noah’s singing has the cheerful tone of show tunes, June’s songs resemble mournful-sounding mid-century folk music. Think Joan Baez, circa 1959.)

I lay down with the children and sang some lullabies in hopes of getting them to sleep but the poking had resumed and I decided to separate them. Beth joined Noah in his bed and I carried a limp and exhausted June to the other bed. I told her I was going to take a shower and then I’d come to bed with her. Noah fell asleep before I emerged from the bathroom, but it was past ten before June slept. I think Beth fell asleep before she did. Once the room was filled with the sleeping breathing, I stood in front of the sliding glass doors and watched the waves crashing on the beach for ten minutes before I crawled back into bed. I fell asleep listening to the sound of the sea.

Noah popped out of bed at 6:05. He went to the bathroom so he could turn on a light to read without disturbing anyone. June was up by 6:30. I was hoping she’d sleep later because she’d been up so late, but no dice.

Intermittent rain in the morning and steady rain in the afternoon was forecast so our plan was for me to take the kids to play on the beach after breakfast if it wasn’t raining since it might be our only chance all day. Since we’re always up for hours before any stores open, it seemed like a good plan: play on the beach, shop, lunch, nap, Santa, more shopping, dinner. Well, it was raining pretty steadily when we woke up, and still raining during the reconnaissance mission June and took to see what restaurants were open at 7:30, and still raining while we ate our blintzes and bagels at the Gallery Espresso (http://thegalleryespresso.com/index.html). (I had the pumpkin blintzes, which I recommend if pumpkin pie for breakfast sounds like a good idea to you.) It was a hard, cold rain, too, so the beach was out and it was past nine when the first few shops open so we decided to start shopping.

Beth and June went to Browse About Books (http://www.browseaboutbooks.com/) while Noah and I swung by the hotel so he could change shirts. (The berry blitzes he ate for breakfast were hard on his pale blue button down.) When we got to the bookstore, we found June pushing around a little shopping cart and filling it with many items, quite of few of them pink and sparkly. I tried explaining that when we Christmas shop, we try to select items the recipient will like and not things we like. June considered this and suggested brightly that we just buy everything in the cart for her.

“I suppose you’ve already had this conversation,” I said to Beth. She nodded. We decided to let June continue with her shopping unfettered for a little while longer so we could browse for our own gifts. But eventually the moment of reckoning had to come. I picked through her cart and actually a few salvageable items. There was a little book that allows you to write limericks by filling in the blanks. Noah likes poetry and Mad Libs so we thought it would work as a gift for him. There was also something crafty I thought my sister might enjoy doing with June so we said she could buy that, too, for Auntie Sara. Everything else would have to stay in the store, we told her. June was crushed. How could she leave Lila at the store? Lila was rag doll in a princess costume with blonde hair streaked with pink. It was a bad sign that June had given her a name. Clearly, she was in love.

Beth threw out some broad hints that maybe June would get something like Lila for Christmas. Then she suggested they take a picture of her holding Lila so she could keep that as a memento. They were still deep in negotiations as I wound my way to the checkout counter with June’s purchases, a birthday card for my stepfather, and a copy of Black Beauty for Noah. He’s been reading the A-Z Mystery series (http://www.ronroy.com/atoz/), which is so poorly written it inspired me to buy him some classics. There was a book signing by Bam Margera (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bam_Margera) scheduled for noon and an hour before the start time, the store was jam-packed with teenagers standing in a line that snaked through the aisles, so we agreed I’d wait for them at the front of the store instead of trying to fight my way back to the children’s area.

As I waited I heard crying. That sounds familiar, I thought. I hoped it was someone else’s kid, but I didn’t think it was. Beth arrived with a sobbing, doll-less June in tow. She left her with me as she went to make her own purchases. As Beth walked away I asked if I should offer to make our previously scheduled stop at Candy Kitchen our next stop. “That sounds like a great idea,” Beth said. With that promise, June’s tears started to taper off. And once we were in the store and she had a lollipop of her own, she was even able to listen to Beth’s instructions about what kind of treats certain people like best and to look for them. I’m not saying she’s embraced the spirit of giving yet (that’s a long, multi-part lesson) but I think we made a little headway.

After lunch and a nap, it was time to visit Santa. Still curled up in bed with her, I told June that Santa might say “Ho Ho ho,” and then he would ask her name. Concern crossed June’s sleepy face, “But he knows,” she said.

“He might not recognize you from last year since you’ve grown so much,” I said, thinking fast.

June beamed. “He’ll be surprised to see I growed into three!” she said.

Noah, who hasn’t believed in Santa for two years, had agreed to go through the motions for June’s sake. He went into the house and greeted Santa. Santa asked if he knew what he needed to do to get presents. What? Listen to his mother and try his best in school, Santa answered. Then he asked if Noah knew what he wanted. Noah was coy and wouldn’t say. Santa knows, Santa assured him. Then Santa turned to June, who needed a little convincing to step into the house, even with Noah still in the room. Santa said she didn’t need to sit on his lap. Some children like to touch his finger to see if he’s real, he suggested. June held out her finger and they touched fingertips briefly. Did she know what she wanted? She was unable to speak. I asked Noah to convey her request, which she’d gone over with us many times during the past few weeks. A princess tent, Noah said.

“A princess tent. We have a lot of those in the workshop,” he assured her.

Then Santa’s assistant gave both kids little bags of cookies and we left.

June was keyed up from her encounter with Santa. “We didn’t shake hands. We shook fingers!” she said giddily.

The rain was still coming down but I hadn’t been to the beach all day and I couldn’t wait any longer, so I got myself a 20-ounce hot cranberry tea and wrapped a wool scarf over my head (it was too windy for an umbrella and my jacket has no hood) and I went out to brave the elements. No one can say I am the beach’s fair weather friend.

At five, we met up for dinner at Grotto’s. There the kids got balloons. Noah’s was red and he named it Cherry. June’s was pink and she named it Pig. Pig met a sad end in the hotel room and for the rest of the weekend June carried the scraps around with her, saying, “Pig was my most favorite.” Noah kept speculating about whether or not Cherry would pop and neither Beth nor I laughed. We didn’t even crack a smile. We are that good.

When the sun rose on Sunday morning, the skies were blue with big, puffy pink clouds. I took the kids to play on the beach after breakfast. June and I built and decorated five sand castles with shells and pebbles and sea grass and I built several more for Noah and June to stomp on. The kids, who had not had much outdoor time that didn’t involve hurrying from hotel to stores to restaurants and back the day before, tore around the beach like wild things. June traveled long distances in search of pebbles that were identical to the ones near her castle site. Noah got too close to the water while trying to collect sea foam and soaked his feet. (He was the only one of us not wearing boots.) We left after forty minutes, only because of Noah’s wet feet.

Sometime Sunday morning, June had a brainstorm. We could go get Clara from the store and show her to Santa so he would know what she looked like and he could bring her on Christmas. Clara? Further conversation revealed June had changed Lila’s name. (There was an abridged Nutcracker book at YaYa’s house Thanksgiving weekend, which I assume is where June got the name.) Santa wouldn’t be in his house until after lunch, and we were leaving after lunch, we told her, but we were pretty sure he knew about Clara already. Didn’t he already know what Noah wanted?

While the kids and I were at the beach, Beth went back to Browse About and bought Clara.

Over the River and Through the Woods…

Posted on November 29, 2009 by Steph

We pulled out of the driveway at 9:04 on Thanksgiving morning and at 9:05 Noah declared, “I’m bored.” I knew then it was going to be a long drive. Beth had agreed to a pit stop at Starbucks if we made it out of the door by 9:00 and apparently she forgave us the four minutes because she drove straight to the nearest one, where I picked up a hazelnut latte for myself, marble pound cake for Noah and vanilla mini-scones for June. We probably would have been on time if Noah hadn’t wanted to dash back into the house for his copy of Car and Driver. (He’s going through a car phase.)

The trip started off quietly enough. Noah read his magazine and June was engrossed in an episode of Busytown Mysteries (http://www.busytownmysteries.com/), which she was watching on Beth’s phone. She was listening to the audio with headphones, which kept slipping down off her ears. Noah helped her re-position them several times until we decided it was too much hassle and decided to disconnect them. This was when the trouble really started. Noah had initially objected to June using the headphones because he wanted to watch, too, but he wasn’t too insistent about it. Once he could hear, however, he wanted to see and June was holding the phone at an angle that made this difficult. Soon Noah was crying and trying to grab the phone and June was yelling at him and twisting in her seat to keep it away from him. I tried to referee from the front seat but I was entirely without success.

Beth pulled off the highway into a long wooded driveway with a sign that read Saint Mark. It was a strangely peaceful spot, so close to the Beltway. The church was set back from the road, tucked into the woods. There was a cluster of buildings, but the one in front of us was round with a tall, conical roof reaching up into the treetops. It looked like something from a fairy tale (http://www.saintmarkpresby.org/).

The inside of the car was not so peaceful, however. The kids were both still screaming. Beth parked the car, got out and opened Noah’s door. I was curious to see what she would do. She asked Noah to stop crying so he could listen to her. It took a few moments, but he did. She suggested he move from the right hand seat to the middle one so he could see. June would still hold the phone because it was her turn and he might not be able to see perfectly, but he could see the screen better. Would that be okay? Noah sniffled and said yes. Feeling any gain on Noah’s part must by necessity be a loss on hers, June howled more loudly. “But I don’t want him to see!” she wailed. Beth unbuckled her and suggested they go for a walk to see the funny-shaped building up close and off they went.

While they were gone I got out of the car and stood by the open door. I started to talk to Noah about The Responsibilities of the Older Child, which include, but are not limited to, acting more reasonably than a three year old. I made note of the small space of the car’s interior, the long duration of the drive ahead (we were only as far as Rockville by this point) and the fact that Beth had a terrible headache. (She had been struck on the head by a falling branch while walking through the yard to pack the car that very morning. It was a small branch, a stick really, but it had fallen from a great height and her head hurt her all day.) Noah barely responded. I got a few grunts that might have been interpreted as assent, if one were in an optimistic frame of mind.

Beth and June returned. June had been promised cookies and was on board with the plan to let Noah watch her show. We drove out of the church parking lot at 9:45. The kids watched another half hour of Busytown Mysteries in relative peace. When it was Noah’s turn to pick the entertainment he started searching the phone for the audio books they’d downloaded for him, but something had gone wrong and they weren’t there. Then he checked for leftover television episodes from other trips—deleted. Surprisingly, Noah took this turn of events with equanimity and just asked us to put in a CD (a new mix he’d made using Genius on iTunes). I wondered—had he actually taken my lecture to heart? Maybe, but who knows? He’s like that—easily riled at times, gracious and easy-going at others. Maybe he’d gotten all the upset out his system earlier.

While the CD played, around 10:35, Noah said, “This isn’t what I think of when I think of Thanksgiving.”

“What do you think of?” I asked. I had to repeat myself a few times to get a response.

“Eating a lot of food, not driving,” he said.

Then about a half hour later, he proposed a game. Could we pretend we were poor and we’d spent all our money on a car and now we needed to find someone to take us in? We agreed.

“It’s too bad we spent all our money on a car,” Noah said.

“That was foolish,” Beth commented.

“Maybe we’ll find someone to take us in,” Noah said.

“I hear they’re hospitable in West Virginia,” I added. “Let’s drive there. Maybe we’ll find a nice widow woman.”

Throughout the rest of the day, every now and then Noah speculated about whether this would be a good town to stop and look for hosts, but we always decided to drive on.

Around 11:30, June started crying and complaining of a stomachache. Ever since her first bout of carsickness last summer, June’s been worried about throwing up in the car. It was her first long car trip since then, so I was worried, too. I’d packed two spare outfits in the diaper bag, just in case. Beth pulled off the highway onto a country road. She parked in front of what seemed to be an empty farmhouse and I took June outside for some fresh air. She slumped against me at first, whimpering. We sat on some stone steps and she snuggled into me. I could feel her stomach gurgling ominously under her dress as I rubbed it. Within just a few minutes, though, she perked up and was running around, using a low, stone wall as a balance beam while I held her hand. I was wearing a turtleneck and a heavy sweater and I was getting cold and she was wearing only a cotton dress and leggings so I asked her if she wanted her coat. She did not. Noah came out of the car and wanted to peek into the windows of the house, but Beth called him back. It looked run-down but it wasn’t entirely clear it was vacant. We all piled back into the car and began to look for somewhere to get gas, use the restrooms and eat our lunch.

After we gassed up, we stopped at a scenic overlook. The idea was to take in the view of the valley below and eat in the car, but the kids wanted back outside. We were at a higher elevation now and the air was chilly and damp, not inviting picnic weather. Beth announced her intention to stay in the car. I said I’d take the kids up to the picnic area. After a brief debate with June on the topic “Does June need a coat?” (Steph: pro; June: con), we walked over the tables with our arms laden with yogurt, oranges, baba ganoush, hummus, pita chips and juice. June ate almost nothing, but found some wooden beams sunk into the ground to balance on. Noah and I ate and looked at the view. Everyone was happy.

We got back to the car around 1:00. It was naptime, so I gave June the pacifier she’d been wanting since 10:30 or so. (She only has them at nap and nighttime now but she’s not happy about it.) We drove off. Noah kept singing and humming loudly. We kept shushing him, reminding him that June was trying to sleep. June paid him no mind. She sucked contentedly on the pacifier, curled up with “Baby Bush” (that’s Bush Baby to you and me) and fell asleep. June’s still a devoted napper, unlike many of her classmates who have stopped napping, but car naps have gotten dicey for her. I was thinking she might sleep only a half hour or forty-five minutes, but she slept an hour and ten minutes and during a rare spell of quiet from Noah, I dozed for fifteen or twenty minutes myself.

She woke at 2:25 and we drove for another hour. As we approached Wheeling, speculation about where we might find some kind soul to feed us and put us up for the night intensified. We pulled into the parking lot of YaYa’s condominium around 3:30. Beth said she thought it looked like a good place. She parked the car and we got out. I heard a tapping sound and looked up. There was a kindly woman looking out the guest bedroom window and knocking on the pane.

She took us in; she laid a feast before us; she sheltered us for three days. During this time we visited with her sisters, took a walk in a snow squall and watched the swirling flakes melt in the creek, and beheld the elaborate Christmas decorations at the mansion and the lodge in Oglebay Park and drove through the Festival of Lights display there (http://www.oglebay-resort.com/). We also visited with Beth’s father at his house.

And then we drove back home. There was less fighting on this trip, worse traffic and more stops because June realized she had it in her power to stop the car by announcing she felt sick or needed to use the potty. Because she probably was sick some of these times, we usually did stop. The potty trips were more suspect, as she has used the potty exactly once since last spring, but we went through the motions there, too. We left Wheeling at eleven and were home by 6:30. We dove into dinner preparation, unpacking, baths for the kids and then we all sank into bed, happy to have gone and happy to be back home.

The Fairy and the Pirate Ship: A Halloween Tale

Posted on November 1, 2009 by Steph

Once upon a time, there was a small fair-haired fairy-child with golden wings and a golden skirt filled with pink and blue rose petals who lived in a dogwood tree whose leaves were yellow all the year long. For this reason she was called Yellow Dogwood. In the fall of the year, she noticed eerie changes around her tree. Ghost floated among its branches. A skeleton’s skull and limbs emerged from the ground nearby. An enormous spider spun a web on the porch of the cottage behind her tree and great pumpkins with glowing faces appeared. Yellow Dogwood recognized a cat, an owl, three bats and the Count von Count of the Land of Sesame on the strange pumpkins.

Yellow Dogwood knew the meaning of these omens. Samhain, the night when the border between the world of the living and the world of the dead was at its thinnest, was nigh. And she knew what she would need to do. In the village of Takoma, where Yellow Dogwood lived, there was a Samhain procession to honor the dead before they returned to their own world.

On the appointed night, Yellow Dogwood and her brother and her two mothers and her fairy grandmother sailed to the site of the procession in her brother’s pirate ship, Black of the Sea, as it traveled down the canals of her village under dark and cloudy skies. Black of the Sea was a sturdy yellow craft whose sides were always festooned with seaweed. It flew the Jolly Roger on its mast. As the children approached the town square, a merchant made Yellow Dogwood a present of a small orange monkey. Yellow Dogwood clutched it tightly by the hand. Soon Yellow Dogwood saw many people she knew, including her friend the fairy of the Blue Gingko tree and Annie the Orphan girl, a schoolmate of the year before, known then as Dragonfly. Yellow Dogwood and Blue Gingko tried to talk to Annie, but she had grown bashful of them and clung to her mother. Yellow Dogwood also saw a great lass who sometimes served as her nursemaid, wondrously transformed into a pitcher of milk, accompanied by a box of crispy rice porridge. And she saw the nursemaid’s brother, friend of her own brother, in ninja attire. Another boy who rode the school-carriage with her brother had become a masked and armed green turtle and one of her own schoolmates (the spirit of the Blue Dogwood tree) was now a red dragon! The dead and the living mingled. Animals and monsters walked with humans. Hagrid of Hogwarts, he of the large belly and larger spider was there, as were the four Pevensie children of Narnia, along with Aslan and Jadis, the White Witch. Most wondrous of all, a merchant’s rack of garments walked among the crowd. It truly was a marvelous sight!

The villagers were divided by age at the start of the procession. Yellow Dogwood, being three years of age, joined the other three and four-year-old villagers. There were many, many fairies among them, and also a cowboy seated on a horse and a vampire bunny and other strange creatures. Blue Gingko took Yellow Dogwood by the hand as they circled the square. When the smaller villagers had finished their turn, the two fairies settled in the center of the square to wait for the older ones to pass by. Blue Gingko was especially eager to see her brother, Sir Gingko, a knight who had met a sad end. As he passed, they shuddered to see the arrows protruding from his midsection and his helmet and the blood that dripped down, but Blue Gingko was brave and cheered to see her poor departed brother. They stayed in their place to watch for the next group come by, for Yellow Dogwood wished to see Black of the Sea glide by, but somehow they missed it in the crowd.

Yellow Dogwood met up with her brother as the procession entered its second phase, a long trek to the banquet hall at the school called Branches of Pine. A spell had been cast on Black of the Sea that caused some to perceive it as a wedge of cheese, much to its captain’s dismay. As they marched, a light rain fell and Yellow Dogwood grew weary of walking and often wished someone could carry her, but she persevered and finally found herself in the banquet hall, where sweet oaten-raisin cakes, ginger cakes and apple and grape nectar awaited. After they had taken some nourishment and received a bag of sweets to take home, Yellow Dogwood and her brother left the hall. It was then she realized that, alas, she had lost her magic wand! Her mothers searched the hall all over but the wand was not to be found. Saddened but resolute, Yellow Dogwood boarded Black of the Sea and she and her brother and mothers and fairy grandmother sailed home.

The children supped on carrots and noodles and cheese while the grown folks ate lasagna. They were tired and footsore, but there was yet one more task ahead of them. They must visit all the neighboring cottages, offering Samhain greetings and receiving treats in exchange. Yellow Dogwood’s wings glittered in the light of the street lanterns and her skirt seemed to glow as she set off with brother, her mother and her fairy grandmother. The children had regained their strength and they were joyous except when Black of the Sea skidded on wet paving stones covered with leaves and toppled over. Yellow Dogwood’s brother fell out of the ship and wounded his backside, but after a few moments, he recovered. Almost an hour after they set out, they returned, their baskets full of sweets. They sat on the porch of the cottage, eating sweets until it was time to go their beds.

When morning broke, Yellow Dogwood wondered what transformations might befall her next Samhain. Would she be a cat? Nay, a rabbit! Nay, a dinosaur! Aye, a dinosaur! Yellow Dogwood’s brother thought that his ship might transform into a castle. It had been a marvelous night among the spirits. Yellow Dogwood and her brother could hardly wait for next year.

Smashing Pumpkins

Posted on October 24, 2009 by Steph

“It’s pouring rain,” Beth announced as she opened the front door at 3:20 this afternoon. We were herding the kids out to the car so we could drive out to Potomac Vegetable Farm (http://www.potomacvegetablefarms.com/) for our Halloween pumpkins.

“You’re kidding,” I said. Heavy rain had been predicted for the whole day, but so far we’d had only overcast skies and a little drizzle. June’s soccer practice went on as scheduled, a bit of good luck since it had been rained out last weekend. She even scored two goals when the kids went up against the adults, three on one. After soccer, Beth took Noah to his swim lesson and then they went shopping for Halloween costume materials. (He’s going to be a pirate ship. A direct quote: “Most people who wanted a pirate-themed costume would be a pirate, but I am going to be a pirate ship.”) Our day seemed to be humming along. I had been careful not to mention anything about going to the pumpkin patch to June in case rain developed, but with Beth and Noah on their way home at 2:45 and no rain falling, I told June we were going to a farm to pick pumpkins and she could not have been more delighted. She danced around the house crying, “”We’re going to a pumpkin farm! To get pumpkins!”

Beth and I stood at the open door, looking at the rain pelting down on the lawn and quickly conferred. It was hard to know what the weather would be like forty miles away and we had a very excited little girl on our hands. We decided to brave it. If worst came to worst, we could dash out of the car, grab four pumpkins, pose the kids in the hatch of the car for our annual picture and consider the outing finished. In years to come we’d look at the pictures and laugh, remembering the year we went to get pumpkins in a downpour.

But by the time we pulled into the parking lot, the rain had let up. There was just a light drizzle. At first Noah carried Beth’s umbrella while he inspected the pumpkins but soon decided it was too much trouble and abandoned it. I put June’s rain jacket on, but didn’t bother to zip it.

Noah and June had very different impressions of the field with its rows of pumpkins piled up on pallets before them. Noah was puzzled. Didn’t it used to be bigger? We had to skip our farm trip last year because we were all laid low by a nasty stomach bug so he hadn’t seen it in two years. It looked smaller to his eight-year-old eyes than to his six-year-old eyes, apparently.

June didn’t remember ever having come before so it was all new to her. “We’re here! We’re at the pumpkin farm! Look at all the pumpkins!” she cried.

The kids ran around between the rows of pumpkins, peeking out at each other from behind the piles. June clambered over a row, sending pumpkins rolling onto the grass. I reconstructed the pile and checked the errant pumpkins for damage. One stem had snapped off but that was it. No more climbing on pumpkins, I said. She pouted a little but got over it quickly. June and Beth and I made our selections and carried them to the red wagon. It took Noah longer to find the perfect pumpkin, but eventually we had what we came for and we headed over to the farm stand to buy a baking pumpkin for soup, and sweet potatoes and green beans and green tomatoes to fry and apples and cider pressed that very day. June was enchanted with the decorative gourds so I let her select one and then Noah had to have one, too. Noah pulled the wagon around the stand and Beth had to keep a close eye on him so he didn’t crash it into the bins of vegetables, or obstruct foot traffic or go too close to the cars in the parking lot. “Pumpkin delivery! Pumpkin delivery!” he called out as he pulled the wagon back to the car. It was raining harder now. But our mission was complete.

We stopped on the way home for dinner at the Vegetable Garden (http://www.thevegetablegarden.com/). We got honey-fried black mushrooms, spring rolls, noodles with vegetables, veggie tempura and eggplant hot pot. It was delicious. Noah ate and ate and ate but June wasn’t too hungry and she soon grew restless. She was climbing all over the booth, trying to scale the back of it and then she was crawling under the table, wanting to play hide and seek. The waiters kept trying to take our food away before we’d finished eating. I wondered they were hurrying us out because of June’s shenanigans, but Beth thought they just wanted to clear our table before the dinner rush. Finally, I took her for a walk outside under the awning of the shopping center while Noah finished up.

As we pulled out of the parking lot onto Rockville Pike, Noah started yelling. The hatch was open! One of the pumpkins had fallen onto the busy thoroughfare! I didn’t see it, but Beth and Noah did. He said it looked like a basketball was bouncing next to the car. Beth pulled onto a side street and parked. I got out of the car and went in search of the pumpkin. It was a longer walk than I thought it would be, but finally I saw it. It had rolled into the relative safety of a bus lane and appeared to be intact. I picked it up and found a small hole with two cracks radiating from it near the bottom. I could see seeds and smell the clean scent of fresh pumpkin through the hole.

I brought the pumpkin back to the car to much rejoicing. “At least we have a head start on carving the eyes now” Noah said. (He thought the hole was higher up.) The boy is a born optimist. I felt very lucky just then, for a minimally damaged pumpkin, an outing saved more than once from the brink of disaster by my intrepid partner, enthusiastic daughter and irrepressible son.

The Free and the Brave

Posted on July 5, 2009 by Steph

On Saturday our nation celebrated two hundred and thirty three years of independence. I think for parents of small children, independence is always on the horizon. We marvel as our babies take their first steps or step off to kindergarten, but we are always focused on what comes next and the freedom we will receive when the child sleeps through the night or weans or potty trains or spends a few hours a week away from home. Independence for them means freedom for us, however bittersweet some of the milestones may be.

Beth had the day before the Fourth of July off work because it was a federal holiday. Noah had drama camp and if we could have found a sitter for June we might have had the rare freedom of a few hours alone together. Alas, it was not to be. Still, when Beth took Noah to camp, she offered to take June along and then they went to the playground so I had a nice block of time to myself. Not as exciting as a date, but pleasant nonetheless. After puttering around the house a bit and doing some work for Sara, I settled in under the silver maple in the back yard with a book (the collection of haunted house stories I received for my birthday back in May). I finished a story I’d started approximately two weeks before and read another in its entirety. It felt luxurious to finish a short story the same day I started it.

That afternoon we all went to pick Noah up at camp. It was the last day of the one-week session so there was a performance for parents, which consisted of skits of fables. Noah was in “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.” He was a sheep. I was amused to find I could actually pick his “baaing” out from the general din. As we left, we ran into some counselors from previous years, who are now working with the ten-to-thirteen-year old group. They greeted Noah with enthusiasm and asked when he’d be in their group, which actually puts on real plays. Two years, we said. Noah’s been going to drama camp since he was just short of six (he started in the spring break camp). It’s hard to imagine him in the middle of the three age groups. June will be five and old enough for drama camp herself that year! I imagined both of them in camp at the same time. The mind boggles.

After camp was over and before our pizza dinner, we went over to the fountain. The fountain, a circular mosaic with jets of different heights (low at the edges, high in the middle) is a popular gathering place in downtown Silver Spring. In the summer, there are almost always some kids splashing around in it. On a hot day or on weekends, it can get quite crowded. Noah will dash into the fountain with abandon, though he avoids the biggest jets. June has been hesitant about even getting close enough to get wet this year. She was actually more daring last year. I think she might be old enough to process potential threats in more detail now, so while she’s still a daredevil on the swings, for instance, she finds herself scared of things that she used to enjoy, as my stepfather found out recently when he hung her upside down. We’d been at the fountain on Wednesday morning with a friend from music class and his mom and younger brother. June had gone in enough to get her bottom damp. I wondered how she’d be this afternoon. At first, she said she didn’t want to go in, but then she ventured closer. She stuck to the perimeter of the fountain, taking her foot in and out of the water, and experimenting with blocking the flow of water by stepping down on it. Every now and then it shot up, soaking her, but she kept going back, taking her own exploratory steps toward independence.

As the kids played in the fountain, Beth showed me printouts of cars. Our fifteen-year old car was starting to show its age after 126,000 miles. There have been a series of problems, but the latest, multiple oil leaks, would have cost $2,000 to fix, so we were in the market for a new (to us) car. Beth wondered out loud if the car we buy now would be the last practical family car before the Mustang convertible she imagines herself driving once the kids are grown. Probably not, she mused, as we are buying used and ten years is the best we can expect. The second to last, maybe, she said. I said she could have the Mustang if we could move to the beach. She said she’d drive it around Rehoboth and hot women would flock to her. But she’d turn them away, I said. Of course, she added. Sometimes fantasy is its own kind of freedom.

The next day was the Fourth. We marched in Takoma Park’s parade, with the contingent from June’s nursery school. Last year Noah and the Bumblebee’s older sister held up the banner for the whole parade route, but this year he opted to ride his scooter instead. At home, just before we left, we deliberated—stroller for June or tricycle? The stroller would be faster and easiser to control, but she loves her trike and it lets her do at least some of the work of propelling herself (there’s a stick in the back a parent can push). We decided to ask her. “My bike!” she exclaimed, and so it was. When we got to the staging area where kids and parents were decorating their wheels with crepe paper and balloons, we saw that the Ant has the exact pink, purple and yellow trike June has. We got it at an independent toy store in downtown Takoma (http://www.takoma.com/archives/copy/2006/08/guiltFreeTP.html); I wondered if they did, too. I wrapped red, white and blue paper around the trike’s long handle and tied on a red balloon and a blue one, each sprinkled with white stars. And even though it did not match the color scheme, I also put on two pink ones, because June asked me to. As we worked and waited to get started, we chatted with other parents and said hi to the Squash Bug, resplendent in her pink nursery school t-shirt.

Finally it was time to go. As we marched, the Butterfly ran ahead of the banner and dropped behind, fluttering about like a real butterfly. For a while, he defected to daycare just behind us—they had a bubble machine. It was a long route, but June pedaled most of the way. Several families with kids who had been in Noah’s nursery school class, plus other friends, yelled to us from the sidewalk and waved as we marched through the streets of Takoma.

After we passed the judging stand and the parade was over, we stopped at an ice cream truck and indulged. (In our family Easter and Christmas are the two days of the year you can have candy in the morning and the Fourth of July is the one day you can have ice cream before lunch.) On the way home, we let Noah scoot ahead of us, as long as he stopped and waited for us at intersections. This is our normal rule, but because of the crowds, it meant often we could not see him. It was unnerving, but we have been trying to give him a longer leash recently. He goes on scooter rides by himself up and down our block and we have left him home alone for short periods of time (sometimes over a half hour).

We were all full from ice cream when we got home and tired, too, so we skipped lunch and June and I went to our bedroom for a nap while Beth and Noah went to get his hair cut and pick up a few groceries for our Fourth of July picnic dinner of veggie hot dogs, baked beans, corn on the cob, green bean and potato salad and watermelon. They were longer in getting home than I thought they would be, but when they arrived Noah ran inside, yelling that they’d bought a car. It’s a 2005 red Ford Focus with a roof rack. It looks like a mix of every other car Beth has ever driven during our relationship, all of which have been blue or red Ford or Subaru station wagons. This car is number four, so I guess the Mustang will be number six.

Today was the last day of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival (http://www.festival.si.edu/) and we hadn’t been yet so we decided to go, even though it made for a busy weekend. Sasha called Noah this morning and asked for an afternoon play date. We wouldn’t be home, so we invited him to come along with us. Once June had napped, we all got in the new car and drove into the city. (Normally we’d take the Metro, but it’s been very slow due to the ongoing investigation of the tragic accident last month.)

All I wanted from this experience, I told Beth, was to listen to some pretty music, eat some interesting food, and take our annual picture of me and the kids by the Washington Monument. Every year the festival features three cultures. We entered the mall at Wales and I was immediately drawn to tent where a trio of Welsh musicians was playing. Noah and Sasha wanted to explore, however, so Beth went with them and June and I stayed at the tent, listening to a love song, a sea chanty, a song about a miner’s strike and some instrumental pieces. June was engaged for about fifteen minutes, and then she decided climbing up and down the bleachers was more fun than listening to music. Our section was not crowded, so I let her go. “Look how high I am!” she called to me from the top bleacher.

When Beth and the boys came back, we snapped the picture and sought food. It turns out the last forty-five minutes of the festival on its closing day is not the best time to try new cuisines. Almost everything was sold out. Beth got a small plate of Welsh cheeses and I got some fried plantains at the Central American food tent, but we were actually forced to go to the permanent food pavilion to get a hot dog and potato chips for Sasha and fries, cookies and ice cream for everyone else. It was not our most nutritionally sound dinner ever.

On the way back to the car, Beth, Noah and Sasha ducked into the Marketplace tent. They were the very last people allowed in. June and I straggled a few steps behind and were cut off by the guard after they entered the tent. A little while later, Noah came out with a cd of corridos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrido) and Sasha had an African shaker made from a gourd. We drove home, tired out from a weekend of celebrating. We were celebrating America’s birthday of course, but also June’s bravery in the fountain and Noah’s independence as he gracefully scooted through crowds and away from us, and all the small displays of gradually increasing independence we and our fellow parents see every day while we are raising children. Now it was time for the free and the brave to go home and go to bed.

All For The Love Of You

A Chronicle of Suburban Lesbian Family Life

Category Archives: Holidays