Strange Monday

So much rain and gray, and then, what's that? Snow?! Phew, it's ephemeral and, like a quick glance, gone. The yard is soggier than a bowl of kids' cereal left out all morning; it sucks and squishes and squelches underfoot. The mulch Jack and I carefully laid down yesterday is unnoticeable now but at least the detritus is cleared away. I wonder how the worms are faring. Are they suffocating? Frozen? Compacted? I'd be miserable down there. Still, there are signs of animation. Spring green buds push north through the cold ground, brave little beacons of life from below. Perennials are so optimistic, aren't they? So ever-hopeful for the light and warmth that does finally come each year, even when we humans consider that such might never be so again. A bit more each day, I hear the happy sing-song of birds returning home again after another season away.

These instinctive behaviors just are. Elemental drives that remind me how simple some things really are or could be.

A nap with the cat, a dust-buster gleefully taken into the depths of our closet, some cooking. Time lapses with total or no accountability. Before I know, it's time to pick up the boys. Bless you, Monday. Usually you come when another moment of weekend simply seems to much to bear. A quick glance at my attire shakes me into a rapid change: I can't possibly go to pick-up in this get-up. Then again, it's still raining and a slicker and knee-high rubber boats will obscure most of my wardrobe randomness.

3:05p: I am at school, simultaneously thrilled to soon see my darlings and anxious about the two minutes of freedom I have left. It's like a reunion you've been dying for meets Sunday night re-entry anxiety for disgruntled workers; what a strange combination of feelings in the early afternoon. I keep in mind that I have just set up a whole table of cheerful Valentine card making materials in the basement. Won't we have fun making cards for friends?! And by starting this early (I'm learning!), there won't be a moment of stress.

I read the boys a book about the Chinese New Year while they happily make cards. Surely two young boys have never made such pretty and thoughtful Valentines so willingly. I bask in this plan that went according to plan. Those can be awfully rare.

I set the table for dinner and prepare their favorites. Oliver loses his mind over something, and I sense that staying up relatively late last night is coming to haunt us. He says he can't possible take a deep breath or stop crying so how on earth will he eat dinner. I feel like I suffered whiplash between the basement and the kitchen. What happened? How?

I take Oliver up for an early bath. He is still wailing and I try some tough love. He informs me that I have been mean to him and that once again he can't possibly stop the torrential flood of tears and snot. My oven timer blares, reminding me about the sixth and seventh pans of cheese straws that are now ready. Jack asks for more dinner, a blueberry yogurt sundae please. Oliver says he has to pee and as I lift the seat and wipe someone's splatters, he pees on my hand. "Mom, you shouldn't put your hand there when I'm peeing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" "Oh, I never thought about it like that." Said no mom ever.

He is finally undressed, the cheese straws are out, next pans in, Jack is eating. Into the bath goes O. Five minutes later J joins. An argument about a waterproof bendy doll named Soaker Bob ensues. Then a battle over scuba goggles. Do you have any idea how fascinating it is to scuba in three inches of bath water when all white tub surrounds you? Un.real. Surely each boy needs to see the amazing visions the tub offers at the same time which is now. Oliver, who has resumed wailing, pinches Jack and says "it was an accident." Puh-lease.

I pluck him from the tub and he says a girl in his class is mean and that he's having a very bad day. I hug him tight and give him some advice and try to get his Pull-up on. Have you ever tried to pull a Pull-up up chubby, wet legs? It is cute but it is not easy. It is like trying to get a wet bathing suit back on without it rolling and snagging so that you end up looking like you're wearing a sadistic twist-tie.

Jack's response to "sweetie, please get out and get your jammies on" is "I'm STARVING. You NEVER feed me enough. Ever. I'm starving." He slams the door. In addition to now knowing that staying up late last night was mos def a mistake, I think, "this load of horse shit again?" I am Ms. Cook for pete's sakes. My kids can attempt to blame me for many things, but not feeding them is never going to be a successful accusation. "Think it through, boys."

I ignore him completely and settle in to read Oliver a different story about Chinese New Year. Jack sidles up, kisses me, apologizes profusely, and as I look at his tired, sweet eyes, my heart aches with love, fading irritation and the compassionate 'ugh' I always feel when I remember how hard it is to grow up and feel you've made a mistake. "Don't worry, honey. I know you're tired."

Oliver wail-begs for another story so I agree IF I can choose. Knuffle Bunny it is because "going boneless" is the ultimate way to describe a melting-down toddler and I've got to hand it to Mo Willems for coining that one; it cracks me up every time I read it. Also, KB is not too long. "Don't think y'all can trick me into Mike Mulligan tonight, kids" I whisper to myself.

Finally they are in bed. I reheat chili for dinner, watch Downton with T and head to bed myself. G'night.

Mary, Mother of Seahawks! And parenting!

Y'all, the Seahawks are killing this game! I mean seriously, I admire Peyton Manning a ton and Russell Wilson has not been on his A-game, but the 'Hawks are slaying the Broncs. A majorly sucky feeling must be pervading the Denver locker room right now; not a good half-time for them. Meanwhile, Richard Sherman and Marshawn Lynch have been surreally quiet, and Kam Chancellor is the star. I called it six weeks ago when I took an interest in this NFL season. The name Chancellor plus his mysterious visor sealed the deal for me, and I have been an enormous, if uninformed, fan since. My suspicions have been fully validated tonight. Go #31. Our Superbowl party meal couldn't have been better: chili verde (an always hit)- spicy awesomeness at its best; coriander-cilantro flatbreads as the perfect side; Greek goddess dip with crudité; the requisite chips/salsa/guac; and more brownies. Oh, those brownies!

Holy SHIT! Who just saw that return by Harvin?!?!?! This game is unreal! Pam Oliver needs to get her hair out of her face. Why on earth was Kurt Russell intoning that weird pre-game show? Do y'all think Peyton feels like he's in an alternate universe? The Dober-huahua was a funny commercial. You do have to hand it to Tim Tebow in his no-contract commercials. "I can save these puppies." Pretty good.

Today was one of those days in which ALL day I had such high hopes about our little family SB party and like one minute in I wanted to die. Or put in ear plugs. Or jump out the window. Or enter a major state of torpor.

Seriously, my eldest is kuh-illing me. There is so much g-damn repetitive talking and questioning and "look mom!" Today while we were mulching the garden, I thought I might perish there. I seriously thought my heart might stop, beaten into arrhythmia by incessant vocalization. I almost wished thus were so. Gall dang I love that boy, but equally, he is often too much for me.

Here's the thing that I've learned about myself through parenting and blogging and counseling and all that jazz: I'm a seriously introverted extrovert. I love to be with others and do derive energy from those interactions but I have GOT to have quiet time by myself to survive all the rest. I need to be completely without stimulation in order to handle it all the rest of the time. And boy is the rest of the time intense. I am so grateful that my boys are the young men they are but that doesn't mean that my strengths consistently align with their traits, needs and desires.

And that is one of the very toughest challenges of parenthood: you get the kids you get, whether or not they're the easiest for YOU to parent. Usually, in some way, they're entirely not. So you adjust and grow and improvise and shape-shift and seek advice and cry and drink and hide in your bathroom and throw multiple Hail Mary's just hoping someone catches one. You exude gratefulness to teachers and sitters and extended family and neighbors and friends- anyone who'll give you a shoulder of support or a moment's reprieve. And you look for all the silver linings you can: the characteristics in your kids you adore and cherish; the ways in which they're both alike and different from you because in each there can be elements of understanding or appreciation; the times apart from them when you can start to recenter yourself and miss those little buggers.

When you don't have enough of those sweet spot moments, when you find yourself in the negative on your reserve meter, you punt and you fake it or you just admit that you have nothing left and hope they understand or forget or that it doesn't mar them in any big way.

As a mother, I leapfrog from one unspoiled lilypad to the next, trying to avoid or ignore or just deal with the less pure water winding in and out and all around. I try to hold in the balance all the things I love about my children and the gratitude I truly feel for being able to stay at home with them with the very real and unvarnished truths of the situation: that parenthood can really suck, bore the shit out of me, test me beyond known limits, ask more of me that I feel I can or want to give and, critically, that it never stops. Once that baby is born, you are beholden to its needs for decades to come. No one tells you that, but even if they did, you wouldn't believe the intensity of that constant truth.

My expectation for tonight was that we'd have a ball, aka soldier on, through the first half of the game, put the kids to bed at halftime and exhale and quietly enjoy the second half. That worked perfectly well for half of my offspring equation but was a complete fail for the other 50%. That one ended up getting a haircut during the third quarter, talking his way through the fourth and is still fairly peevish about being put to bed two minutes ago. I myself am d.o.n.e. for the night so intend to ignore everything from here on out. But I find myself a tad glum that my time at the recharging station started so much later than I anticipated. Such is the frequent truth of life as a parent. The good is good, the tough is seriously so.

Buona notte, tutti!

Just the four of us once more; and Pear, ginger and black pepper preserves

By and large, January felt like a cold extension of Christmas break. My crew, parents, sister and brother-in-law were in Louisiana for the actual holiday, we then joined much of my father's extended family in New Orleans for a wedding, my foursome returned home and then just after New Year's my sister arrived in DC to visit us for a few days. A couple of weeks later, time that whizzed by in a chilly blur, Mom arrived on the heels of the polar vortex and its snowfall. Today, the first of February, she left, and now we are just four again. A small quartet in a slowly warming city. Though I love to see my sister, mom and dad, I do, upon their always-sad departures, realize what a creature of habit I innately am. Ease in my daily life is reliant on various schedules -mine and the kids' most prominently- which I put aside as best I can when family is here. Perhaps they don't expect that of me, but it seems the only way to truly take advantage of these relatively short times together. After a certain point though, I find myself anxious to get back to it. Not to say goodbye, but simply to rebalance, to return to my normal stasis of life and living it.

This afternoon has been blissful, and for that I am grateful. I am thankful for the solitude I've had for the past two hours, made possible by the presence of a babysitter who's here for just a bit longer. I was nearly starting to tic with having been away from writing for so long and so I have ensconced myself in the basement bedroom, a quiet, windowless room that abuts our "HVAC" niche. Because of the continual whir of the various heating and cooling machines next door, I am lulled into a peaceful zen-state each and every time I'm in this room for long. Mom long ago nicknamed it the "tomb room" because sleeping in here is the ultimate in restorative slumber. No slumber today, just tap, tap, tapping away at my keyboard. Heaven!

After Ol and I dropped Mom at the airport, I brought him home for lunch and quiet time with T and J and then went grocery shopping for Superbowl supplies. Do not even ask me why I'm so excited about tomorrow's game - go Seahawks- because I haven't a clue. I am not remotely gifted athletically, have never watched much football,  and would not even consider ever letting my boys play. But, the playoff games were pretty damn exciting at times, and I found myself enjoying the somewhat barbarous back-and-forth despite myself. So my boys and I are having a little fete tomorrow and I'm making Chili Verde (best-ever chili, seriously!), Lemony Green Beans, Coriander and Cilantro Flatbread, and Brownies (one request from each person). It'll be fun.

Have to tell you about these wonderful preserves I started yesterday and finished up this morning: Pear, ginger, lemon, honey and black pepper. Mamma mia! So pretty, so delicious...I think they'll make a wonderful topping for Brie and warm baguette! If you make them, let me know if you get anywhere close to seven half-pints because I did not. Three and a quarter was my yield, but I'll take 'em!