To my knees

Aboard the coaster

With much on my mind last night, I had a hell of a time getting to sleep. Once I did, my slumber was fitful and brief, and I have felt enervated since my eyes first opened. Today was a roller coaster. Not the fun kind that makes your stomach almost pop out of your throat and leaves you feeling thrillingly alive, but rather the sort that terrifies you and renders you certain that death or injury is around the next bend. It was the kind of day during which I vacillated among wanting to run away, drink a fishbowl of wine and hold on even more tightly to the sweet moments that provided respite from the rest. Don't go worrying, people. Some days are just like this, plain and simple.

I'm teaching a canning class tomorrow, so this morning, before the shit really started going down, I enthusiastically took the boys to the farmers market. We tasted everything in the world (huckleberries are revolting; who knew?), bought a buttery palmier and a flaky croissant, sat down with a half-gallon of apple cider, splurged on carrots and nectarines and peaches and apples and lima beans and a baguette and so on. Together we picked out a bouquet of flowers. Ol was in his caped Batman pajamas; Jack was in some Undercover Savior of the World get-up. They looked so darling.

Atop the first big mountain

And you have never heard so much talking in your life. I'm serious. I don't think you have.

I, on the other hand, most definitely have. All morning and for great portions of the past five years. I think it's just how I'm wired, but being assaulted with an endless stream of noise -much of which is nonsensical chatter and interrogative discourse- truly overwhelms my senses after a while. My gut and brain start to feel as if they're firing at random, synapses ablaze. You know in Ghostbusters how they're always warning each other not to cross the streams or else "total protonic reversal" will ensue? Yeah, I feel like my streams are crossing. Like they're double-dutching in the contest of the century.

We got home, and I declared myself unapproachable for ten minutes. This proclamation did nothing except make me sad that I then spent 9 of those minutes fending off verbal advances. Which, in tandem with their physical counterparts, have continued all day. But I digress.

Down the face and into the loop-the-loop

Duhn-duhn... homework time. The boys' school has a remarkable -for this day and age- and wonderfully reasonable approach to homework: there isn't much when the kids are small, nor does anyone there feel there should be. Me too. Reading daily is the primary commandment, an easy one since we do that anyway. Additional homework generally takes less than 20 minutes. But my dearest older child does have trouble organizing his many thoughts and then putting them onto paper, and so writing-based work is tough.

I suspect it's how math was/is for me. I don't like it, I don't much get it, it's hard but not in a fun way and so, sure, it feels like a crappy chore. But even minimal homework has to get done, and I'll tell y'all the damn truth: education is not something T and I take lightly. Not.in.the.least. Like, I don't find the slightest bit of humor in even the suggestion that education is not paramount. And I can find humor in pretty much everything. Truth.

Long, fraught-yet-dull story short, four questions took an obscene amount of time and energy. For all of us. Homework strife falls into the "Shit No-One Tells You Will SUCK About Parenthood" category. It's enough to manage the doing of it, but if you've got a kiddo who isn't hell-bent on getting that biz done? May the force be with you. Especially if you weren't like that. At all.

On the verge of fire-breathing rage, I took Oliver out for a walk to Crate & Barrel. I knew he'd love ogling all the Halloween stuff, and since T actually rocks math and was in a boat called Patience which could safely roll with the bucking tides of Lake Third Grade Nuts, he won the staying-home award.

It's unsettling to feel truly irate at a young child. It's humbling and scary and sad, and it's one of the many experiences in parenthood that will bring you to your knees. I know, rationally, that J is still but a babe. And I definitely know what it's like to feel overwhelmed by school work, without the slightest idea of where to begin. Yet after an hour of infinite lovesupportpatience, I just don't always have much left. Especially when the one on which I'm bestowing all that lovesupportpatience is acting like an ungrateful, deaf pissant who "hates me!" Rationality tends to fly out the window at that point.

I know I'm the adult. And I know my kids love me wildly. I know things could be harder or worse or yada yada. I know so many things that don't make a hill of beans difference when I'm tired and frazzled and really running on empty and the small ones are pushing, pushing, pushing.

Back into the flat zone, aka catching breath and steeling nerves for the next go

Then a tiny hand slips into mine. The "hate" turns into "best mom ever." I catch sight of a framed picture memorializing a grand moment from days past. Concurrently, I'm aware that my cortisol is spiking and my stomach is churning and that I really feel mental. That dissonance, between mutual adoration and complete unhealth, is all the more insanity-inducing, and then I step, barefoot, in a small lake of Percy's creation (inside, natch), and feel I might spontaneously combust because what the eff with all the stimulative input?!

Oliver went to see a play with a friend, I went to the market, J had a baseball game, and finally we all ended up at the field. Things seemed to have eased into a holding pattern of manageable when Ol unearthed a slab of concrete the size of his torso and started carrying it to the car.

"Ol, honey, why are you taking part of this school with you? It is their property."

Back up and down and all around

Commence giant Alice-in-Wonderland tears and manic assertion that "this wock means SO MUCH to me. I need to put it in my woom."

Erm, no. "Ol, we are leaving this concrete here and going home."

Cue wailing, boneless* reaction from tot and forced belting into car of tot by mom.

"Ol, you look a bit peaked. Are you hungry?"

"NO."

Mom, thinking fast: " The nursery has a big sale right now and they have really cool things made from rocks. Would you like to go on a date and look at cute owls crafted from rocks?"

Skeptical pause followed by somewhat groggy (wailing will do that) "Ok."

Naturally this was not as easy as Sucker Me thought it would be, for at the nursery we saw... more Halloween finery on which to fixate. Ol's lustful eyes spotted and could not let go of a very real-looking skull. Of course, he wanted two.

"You see, Mom, these would look SO scawy [scary] on the fwont porch."

"Ol, do you see the felt on the bottom of these skulls? These are made to be inside decorations. They would get ruined outside." Also, they were $30 a piece for crying out loud. "Let's look online for some really cool and scary Halloween decorations."

Cue wailing, boneless* reaction from tot, complete with giant Alice-in-Wonderland tears and manic assertion: "But this one is SO cool. There will nevuh be such a cool and scawy skull online."

"Ol, you are having such a hard afternoon. Let's go home and do research, OK? Let me just buy this salt" (because obviously the one thing most people leave the plant store with is fancy finishing salt).

His tears, reminsicent of those shed over Garth with the blue necklace (kitten) last week at PetSmart, this time prompted more from the cashier than a hand over the heart. Today, Ol was gifted with a cactus.

Sweet jesus, you'd have thought he'd just been given a lifetime supply of concrete slabs and fake skulls. He was beaming so hard I thought his cheeks would fall off. No child has ever been so thrilled with the gift of a succulent. I, meanwhile, will be forever devoted to this nursery -shout out to American Plant- and that lovely woman's angelic intervention.

Whew

As was deserved, dinner/bed/bath-time went relatively well, and the boys crashed immediately afterwards.  Wine and the best-ever spaghetti and meatballs, which thankfully I had the foresight to resurrect from the freezer yesterday, made for a superb dinner, and now I bid you adieu.

*See Knuffle Bunny. Going/went boneless =  best description of young child meltdown ever.

Light

I'd cleared my schedule for today in case I was still jurying. Luckily, I was released yesterday afternoon, and it has been absolutely lovely having some time for quiet contemplation and creation on this beautiful Wednesday. I walked Percy, leisurely on a new route; I raked and watered, tidying what I easily could. I took some photographs, and not quickies. No, the ones that are constructed and thoughtful and take a bit of effort over time. I picked some fresh jalapeños, blackened them in a stove-top flame and diced them finely for the peppery plum jam in which I wanted to use my bushel of pluots.

The light is perfect today. I feel lucky to have no distractions right now, for that means I can notice and treasure all that gleams and glows around me. You can see it in those just-cut pluots, light shining like diamonds in the glistening flesh. You can see it in the incandescence of the leaves attempting to obstruct the sun's rays; their underbellies radiate an ethereal green light that seems gently aflame. You can see it when it catches on dust motes floating softly through the air, their impact an ephemeral sparkle that you're certain was there, but it disappeared so quickly that you wonder.

The light that comes to us, that we see and take in, that promotes growth and warmth, is an enormous gift. But there is another sort of light, equally important and to be treasured.

Before my boys began attending a Quaker school, I was not familiar with the concept of the light within. I mean, I knew of soul and spiritual centers and such, but I'd never heard our inner selves expressed in terms of light. I love this concept, and I love the way it guides the teaching and interactions with my children, and all children, at their school. The teachers look for the light in each child, knowing it will be unique and that its presentation might be challenging or simple, tough to find or near the surface. They treat each child's light with such respect, seeking to both honor and make it familiar to the child as they gently guide its shape and expression.

This concept is very much in line with the inarticulable philosophy I had, before my kids were born, about how I wanted to appreciate and raise them. I wanted to celebrate the individuals they were but concurrently help them become their best selves. Watching this practice in action -as I see teachers unearth and celebrate that within each child- and learning how to speak of a child's self as his light within has given me a much greater facility for and appreciation of this Quaker tenet. It inspires and humbles me regularly, it gives me hope when things seem dim, it makes me a better parent.

I feel bathed in light today, that from without and from others' withins. And I am grateful.

Yesterday afternoon was one of those that wore like an overly tight shoe strap. One of my children was the strap, and by bedtime, I was a raw, ragged blister. He was funked out about everything, and though I felt I handled him terrifically-even likening his behavior to a piece of poop which he thought was hysterically awesome, by the way- I felt utterly tattered by the time I shut his door for the third (but not the last, as time would show) time.

In the midst of his negotiations, ploys, pleas, questions, complaints, demands, whining, obstinacy and insistence that he was not tired and could not sleep, I found it extremely difficult to see any light inside of him, much less want to. I wanted to snuff that little guy out. I wanted him to be quiet and leave my alone and to stop pushing, pushing, pushing. Why do kids keep at it so strenuously when the feedback isn't good? "Enough!" I wanted to yell. But I didn't (though of course I have before, so don't think I'm that zen).

I looked at my little guy who was so desperately tired but trying not to be. I tried harder to see a flicker of his light, and I did. I hugged him tight, told him I loved him and firmly said it was time for bed. Because, you know, we have to acknowledge and honor our own lights too.

And he slept and I slept, and today is bright.

On double-checking the caffeine in tea you give your child; fall; porcine magician; misc

Of course you can have tea, sweet child

It occurred to me last night around 11pm, when Jack was still awake and truly unable to do anything about it, that perhaps the pots of tea we'd shared with my dear friend, Gay, while at her house playing Monopoly with her and her grandsons, had not been caffeine-free.

It was green leaf tea from China, and we must have steeped three full bags during our hours at play. I realized that my headache subsided but felt sure that was the tea's ancient medicinal power coming through. Also, green tea doesn't have any caffeine, and so I watched with pleasure as Jack downed cup after cup with such pure contentment while we played. An eight-year-old who requests honey and happily grasps a warm mug of tea on a cool afternoon- what is more charming?

Y'all, green tea does have caffeine. You probably all knew that. And my poor little guy was wired to beat sixty. He awoke on the wrong side of the sleepless bed and was rather a bear today, but I could hardly blame him. Literally. #momfail

Somewhat inexplicably (because a sports family we really aren't), young chap read the sports section while eating breakfast this morning.

Fall is falling

After an absurd series of intense dog days last week, fall broke overnight last Thursday, sweeping in with an invigorating zip. It was glorious today; bright, blue, crisp. The sort of day that makes you feel utterly alive, like you want to make applesauce and pumpkin bread and rake leaves and later enjoy something warm and cozy. Indeed, I have flannel PJ pants on right now, and from the moment I slipped them on, I have felt satisfied. This heat-loving lady does love the advent of fall!

Last night, we enjoyed steaming bowls of gumbo, and I again thanked T for making a double batch last month and freezing some. My farming friend gave me a stunning Cinderella pumpkin recently; it is the perfect home accessory this time of year. If only I'd made it to the farmers market today for some fall goodies. Alas. I did make an apple pie with a pecan crumble topping on Friday. We ate it all before I snapped a pic. Oops!

Have you ever met a porcine magician?

I hadn't until yesterday.

These pics = enough said. Look at that eye in the second shot; studying my every move!

Miscellaneous

Fresh garbanzos! Delightful! Harder to peel than they appear.

Fresh ricotta: always the best! Dollops of this beautiful snow dot my pizza tonight.

On November 21, Benedict's movie, The Imitation Game, in which he plays the incredible WWII cryptographer, Alan Turing, opens. He will be excellent in this role!