Up and out: musings on my sweet little ones growing up

Yesterday, one of Jack's best friends invited him to go trick-or-treating with his family. As this boy's mom is one of my close friends, we talked about a joint, both-family Halloween. Oliver, however, felt nervous: what if someone in our friends' family or neighborhood laughed at his Cinderella costume? It's possible. I really wanted to honor Jack's desire to t-or-t with his buddy, but I also wanted Oliver to feel safe and confident so that he could have a fun Halloween. I was also hoping that my little family unit could stay together one more year.

Last night, tired from the party, Oliver said he wasn't comfortable and Jack yelled at him for not being willing to be Cinderella next year. I said we needed to sleep on and talk at breakfast. They were shockingly amenable to this idea, and Jack, in such a mature way, brought it up at breakfast this morning: "can we have our family talk about what to do about Halloween?"

Indeed.

Oliver again said he was nervous, and Jack asked why.

"Because someone might laugh at me, Jack."

"What dummy would laugh about you wearing a beautiful dress as your costume?"

I was beaming with pride and bursting with love, and then Jack went and gilded the lily by adding, "well, I do not want anyone to make fun of Oliver. That's awful. So, I will go with my friend, and Oliver can go with you and Dad."

He didn't say this lightly. I know it's big for him to leave us and join his friend. And I was (am!) so deeply proud of the reasoned and thoughtful decision he made, even though I'll miss him tonight, and that made me feel a little sad. I felt like a beautiful pie from which someone had surreptitiously stolen a slice. Sigh.

People often ask me why I write so regularly, so honestly, so openly. I wouldn't make the time if I didn't love it, didn't feel I simply must get X, Y or Z down in words. Certainly, the love of the craft is part of the why. But also I've found that in no other way can I process and come to understand certain issues, aspects of myself, familial and inter-relational trends, for example, as well as I can through writing.

One of the biggest surprises to me about Em-i-lis is how much better I've come to know myself. I'm a pretty introspective person, but even with years of self-study and analysis under my belt, there is something in the committing-to-the-page method that illumines that much more.

After I dropped the boys off at school, I drove in silence to the gym. I worked my fanny off but realized that I still felt a bit churned up inside. I wasn't ready to write yet; things were too murky. So I went to the market and then to my favorite nursery as it's having a huge sale on perennials today. I stocked up, eager to return home, take advantage of the temperate day we're having and lose my troubles in the soil. Nanny always said that's one thing gardening was good for; you could just work through problems as you worked through the earth. I agree.

I cleared and trimmed and raked and bagged: 7 stuffed lawn bags now await pick-up by our garbage bins. The gardens are clear, the hydrangeas and hostas finally have the haircuts they desperately needed, Nutmeg hunted so many crickets and other tiny beings that he's now out like a light on an ottoman, Percy too is snoring quietly. After two hours, my  back begged for a respite, so I didn't get my new perennials any more than placed where they'll be planted. But I figured out why I felt sad -my oldest little boy really is growing up and away, even in the smallest of ways- and I worked through it and I celebrated him. I realized that Oliver never gets to be the only child so might really love a whole evening of trick-or-treating alone with Tom and me.

And then I came in to finish things off by writing all this down. So that I most clearly understand. So that I will remember.

It's almost BOO-time!

Though I don't do costumes, I can get behind a fun little Halloween-themed party! This afternoon, I'm hosting four little guys (six including my two) for pumpkin-painting, apple-bobbing, cookie-eating. pizza-eating and play. While buying supplies yesterday, the gal checking me out asked, "are you getting creative?" I replied, "oh yes, I'm making stuff as I'm hosting a playdate for six boys tomorrow. Frankly, people, I expected her to say, "wow, mama, go you! SIX boys?!?!" Instead, she looked completely unphased and asked, "you wanna bag for this stuff?"

Maybe she also works at a boys' school or is raising six sons? Or maybe she's never been in the same room as six young bucks? In any case, I'm fully expecting to have a great time and then DROP to the floor the moment all these cuties bid us goodbye. I think I'll chill some wine, just in case. Heh!

My after-party plan for my boys involves popping in the real Wonder Woman movie (Ol watched it at my parents' this summer and loved it, so I Netflixed that puppy in advance of today) until bedtime. Tomorrow is, after all, the real deal. So, we all need to conserve energy, yes?

Since T is away, do y'all know what I had for dinner last night? Pumpkin ravioli in sage-brown butter. Of.the.gods.

The wave subsides, momentarily

I'm playing tether-ball with Nutmeg, via a catnip mouse attached to a long-handled string. He's an excellent player with a phenomenal jumping ability as well as superb paw-eye coordination. Truly, it's impressive. While there is NO way Percy could make it in the wild (any sort of wild) for a half-hour, in Nutmeg I see the vestiges of the wild cats from which he's descended; he would ace living on his own in a non-domestic habitat, though I know he'd miss me. It's so cool to watch him, to experience his skill to silently hunt me (my toes, whatever). You do not hear a sound, not one, and then he pounces. "Where did you come from, Nutmeg?!" I often exclaim. And his patience is extraordinary. He will wait, and wait, and wait, for one last drop of water to fall from my bathtub faucet, for the cricket to jump once more, for the squirrel he surely saw to appear again. If he's hunting, he's like the Dalai Lama in meditation. I enjoy these moments with my playful cat. He doesn't talk (well, he does have an extensive range of meows but it's not the same as little boy talking), he needs very little. He just wants to snuggle sometimes and to play. I recognize that really, those two things are what the boys most want too, and I love to do those things with them. But there is SO much else that they need and want, and at times, it's utterly overwhelming. It is not unusual for my stomach to feel like its churning butter once they leave for school. And I don't mean that in a good, homesteader way because in that instance, I'd be rewarded with butter. In my situation, I feel vaguely ill.

I have only so much capacity at 7am to listen, respond, act, make, do, acknowledge, prepare, feed, remind, urge, answer, help. What they boys want is always more than my reservoir has within it. That's a fairly simple equation regarding supply and demand, and the guttural ache is a direct response to being on the wrong side of the 'equals' sign. I don't know what other families experience with their children of this young age, and really, it doesn't much matter. This is my family, and I wouldn't change that for the world. But I do long for a time, a day, when things aren't so intense, when there's not so much being desired. Because if an unexpected element enters the fray -finding that Percy pooped on our bathmat this morning, for example; realizing that Jack neglected to do all of his homework; remembering a forgotten must-do - the scales plunge rapidly downward on the take side.

When I must be on for extra-normal extended periods of time, I feel disappointed that the things I should (simply want? shoulds are a bitch) be eagerly anticipating are those about which I start to feel some tinge of dread. Take, for example, Halloween. Though I'm an uninspired Halloweener, it is delightful to watch the boys race to each door, hear their darling tiny voices politely trill "trick-or-treat" to each person, watch them try mightily to repress their urge to take everything in the bowl, admire so lovingly their respectful take of just one and then a "thank you!". I do love it so very much.

Yet the path to those moments is like a Rube Goldberg contraption full of negotiations, reminders, making/doing/shopping, counting for the umpteenth time how many days it is to Thursday. When I sit here on a Tuesday morning, awash in relief to have a quiet home for just a bit so I can get myself back to stasis, staying up late on a school night two full days from now (Tom in California until then, no less) is daunting. There is so much to do before then, and then there's Friday. Friday is the one day I have some babysitting this week yet now a post-season baseball party has been scheduled during the hours that were to be mine. A quandary to be sure, and I mean that.

Moments like these are when I feel a deep and serious tug: between wanting to appreciate all these moments and wishing for them to ebb a bit. I tire of trying to fit myself in stolen moments in the bathroom, before pick-up, between the hours of 7 and 9pm. I want to be able to just sit for a bit without a devilish calendar on my right shoulder reminding me of what's in five minutes and then ten.