The days, years, weekends and Miette gingerbread

This rainy, Joaquin-the-hurricane-no-show weekend ran its course about six hours ago.

My nails are crusted with an aromatic blend of garden dirt and gingerbread batter, the house looks like a war-zone despite regular efforts (both willing and forced) by all of us to clean it, I have a zit on my forehead, and although I had grand plans for an epic beef stew dinner tonight, I managed to make the best-quality, most-average beef stew possible. 

It's a good thing I also made five precious little loaves of stellar gingerbread from the Miette cookbook I bought yesterday while on a date with Ol. Jack was at French and then heading to a sleepover, so Ol and I walked Percy in the slightly spitting rain and then decided to drop him off and walk to Starbucks and Crate & Barrel for hot chocolate and a look-see. 

I found this beautiful cookbook, from the eponymous San Francisco bakery, on the clearance rack and couldn't resist the scalloped-edge pages and photographs of perfect layer cakes. Even though it will likely join its neglected kin on my crammed and dusty étagère that charmingly holds all its spontaneously-bought and rarely used relatives, I don't regret buying it.

The gingerbread is superb. Why did the middle of each loaf sink?

People, do you know that pithy parental saying, "The days are long, but the years are short"? Yes, that often feels so fucking true, and I understand why the expression stuck. However, we need to acknowledge that sometimes, the weekend days are long and the weekends are long. 

As a phrase, it doesn't sound nearly as rosy, but I feel certain that 98% of parents would agree with it completely. 

Even when nice experiences are peppered throughout, weekends can compromise the most psychologically-stable of us. And when one of your kids freaks out and cries boulder tears because you refused to allow all the new modeling clay to be used for a "city" which in no way looks like anything more than mountainous boogers and mashed ones, then stomps up the stairs throwing a shit storm of shit behind him and then gifts you with these visuals of your lovelessness and badness, well, you get my drift. 

Tom and I nearly wet our pants.

Mom and Dad are no longer loved.

I think it was at that point that we turned on Jaws as a thrilling distraction. Because we are excellent parents. The children were utterly nonplussed.

When one of my chatterboxes asked if we could play a family game tonight AFTER having cleaned the yard, ridden bikes, made gingerbread, watched TV together, acknowledged that neither child had nearly enough sleep last night, kissed 800 different injuries largely stemming from said sleeplessness, and eaten average beef stew together, Tom and I could not bring ourselves to say yes.

I swear I saw sparks come out of Tom's ears, and I felt an irregular pulse through my largest aortas. 

We said no.

I read some of The Mysterious Benedict Society to us all, and then we ushered the children to bed with a fair amount of enthusiasm. 

Monday, you are coming, and I fucking love you.

On a positive note, Ol and I ate our way through the farmers market this morning and had such a blast. I think we bought all the food. 

the freshest Brussels sprouts

Time's determined march

Leaves are changing color and falling, but the high temperatures and humidity persist. My habanero plant is flowering again; it is confused. Summer and fall are duking it out in the final battle for seasonal primacy.

I step from my bath, dripping and thoughtful. Epsom salts and heat help my achy back, the scar on which hasn’t faded over the years as much as I’d have liked. I am prone to all manner of irregular freckles and moles; some need to be removed, while others are simply physical manifestations of my idiosyncrasies and can stay and remind me of such. 

I study my face and its newer wrinkles, my belly and hips. My eyes look tired. Things everywhere are both taut and soft, as aging bodies are wont. Thinner here, fuller there.

It occurs to me that the seasons aren’t the only things fighting for supremacy.

I used to know everyone in the school pick-up line. But during the past two years, waves of new families have reached the shore, and now, I sometimes feel slightly meek and anonymous. Friendships are being forged, over children and similarities I may never know. 

I haven’t felt that way in a long time, and I’m not sure if I like it or don’t.  

My big boy will graduate this year and move to the older campus. I think I like that but nostalgia grabs my heart and makes me unsure. I glean comfort from the fact that even if I’m then just part of the crowd, my younger one will tether me to the special place for a couple years more.

A friend writes with disbelief, “I can’t believe you volunteer at school so often.” I reply, “I love it because not only can I give back but also I can see my children as their best selves.” I had never thought about that before and am again struck by the power of writing without thinking, of responding without editing myself immediately and repeatedly.

There is a lesson there.

I awoke this morning as might a furious storm, swirling and messy and vexed. My agitation could have been for so many reasons, or none at all. I cried, and cooked. I talked to a dearest friend and kept cooking. I poured my soul into my friend and my food. And, later, into my boys.

They were both darling and not, thankful and spoiled, perfect and ugly. My mind told me to run, my heart urged me to stay. Both were right. I am no longer interested in the not-rare arguments about, for example, how much of a body one will willingly bathe. But I am inordinately grateful to be the one asked for advice and trusted with deep secrets.

Finally, the pregnant skies have opened, releasing their watery savings with an unapologetic gush. The parched earth yawns, gratefully lapping up what is shared. Mud splatters, newly sown seeds are unmoored. Wild animals take cover, my domesticated ones snooze obliviously, comfortable and secure on blankets and in beds.

Time marches inexorably on, battling towards the future and against the past. I see it in the seasons, and on my body. In the wave of new faces and the six years that have flown by, a blip in a vast sea, since my family joined the school community we hold so dear. In my dog’s gray whiskers, and in my husband’s too. In the rain that pours down and my sons as they mature.

In the belief in tomorrow and the fresh start it holds.

Of moons and nerves, of good moments and dark ones

This evening just before 8pm, my ragtag crew piled into the car and headed to a point higher than the plot on which our house stands. Jack's class is studying China, and in anticipation of tomorrow's celebration of today's Moon Festival, he is to have observed the moon and his reactions to it throughout the past week.

Wednesday night was successful (just look at that photo Tom took!), Thursday was vetoed because of an overtired meltdown, Friday and Saturday nights were too cloudy to view anything, and although tonight is still overcast, the clouds were moving on the wings of a hasty wind. We figured we could glimpse something if we got to an elevated space free of trees.

Once at the triangular patch of grass at the intersection of Nebraska and Van Ness, we tumbled out of the car, plastic telescope and clipboard in hand. Tom was the only one not wearing pajamas. Jack was dressed in long-sleeve and pants orange-and white-striped skeleton jammies, with the shirt tucked in dramatically; I had on a matching set covered in hydrangea blossoms; and Oliver was, unsurprisingly, wearing a mismatched pair that included an inside-out shirt and bare feet. 

I'm certain we looked incredibly bizarre. But sitting in the grass as a cool breeze gusted, we glimpsed the gorgeous moon for a brief time and felt happy.

It was a blessedly tranquil moment during a weekend which has had quite a few highs but also some real lows. Perhaps all families with young children live their weekends on such a roller coaster. Some may be better suited or able to handle mayhem, cacophony and filibuster-scale chatter.

I, myself, wish we could disembark on occasion instead of being strapped in to the front seats on Friday at 5pm and forced to climb, loop and fall until Sunday after dark. I'm tired of being so enervated by simply experiencing a weekend.

That word connotes such leisure and relaxation. Weekend suggests catching up on sleep and togetherness, lazy afternoons and all-day pajamas if you like. 

We've got the togetherness and all-day pajama parts down pat, but leisure? Relaxation? Sleep? Time for individual pursuits? I don't know what the hell you mean. 

Even the peaceful lulls ask something: that a movie be turned on or that we adults put our own desires to bed or that we be waiting to pounce (and able to immediately relax) when the stars align and the kids play without calling to us for longer than fifteen minutes.

Do you know that by 9:30 this morning, after I'd made beignets and hung out, I'd listened to Jack try to engage me in conversation about the periodic table for upwards of ninety minutes? People, I wasn't capable of managing that in college (I'm not joking; I was a ghastly chemistry student), much less on a Sunday morning. I'm also not super interested, as I feel confident that I know as much about carbon and iridium as I'd like. 

So, I armed him with two dictionaries and a wikipedia page, and asked/pled/demanded that he study by himself while I did some work for class. Suffice it to say that did not work, and I felt both defeated and angry. Pissed. Because a brain can only take in so many insistent requests for needs other than its own before starting to fritz out. 

Ol, meanwhile, had taken every toy out of every bin and tried on and then discarded every costume. Tom and I were tripping over plastic tools and MagnaTiles and Lego men and toothpicks and acorns and books. And the house looked like it threw up in itself. And I just could not take all of that input. I can't. 

By the time we reached the little patch of grass where we stationed our observatory tonight, it was roughly 13 hours after our day began. Jack, armed with two shiny new reference books, was still talking about the periodic table, and Oliver had just eaten half the noodles off my plate even though Tom took them out to dinner earlier. 

I was happy in that grass, but getting there felt Herculean. It's hard to balance all the various energies needed to parent well, maintain a marriage, stay connected to friends and self and keep your heart open enough that despite fatigue and frustration, you're at the ready to appreciate the golden moments in which lovely memories are made. 

It doesn't feel possible sometimes. The moon hides, the grass is scratchy, you never knew what ytterbium was in the first place.