All the things: Olympics, summer, libraries, hilarity

Did y'all know that (apparently many years ago) the USPS officially decreed that they would no longer put a comma between city and state on address labels? I did not know this, and recently, when a friend and I were drafting invites for a bridal shower we're hosting, I said "Doesn't there need to be a comma between City and State?" and she said, "Honey, the USPS stopped doing that decades ago. Librarians know these things."

And I was and remain appalled because that's just not right-like visually, that's just NUTS. I mean, I adopted the damn Oxford comma, but NO COMMA between City and State? Ain't no way. And so T looked it up for me, and fortunately this nonsense is ONLY a USPS thing, not a worldwide grammar thing, and I am just so grateful I could weep.

I just wanted to share that.

Anyway, tomorrow marks Day 1 of no camp but seemingly infinite time before school resumes, and the boys are sleeping in another fort that uses all of our kitchen table chairs (6) plus two TV trays and 90% of the sheets in our home plus sleeping bags, light sabers, glass water glasses and more.

I would say that this arrangement doesn't bode well for a restful tomorrow, but then again, does it really matter?! We have little planned. At least they fell asleep before I did so that I could tuck a pillow under each of their heads and make sure they weren't suffocating in their sleeping bags. 

Summer is starting to feel long. We've been sweating for a lifetime, and I've set a new record of pizza for dinner in any given week: 4 times. The me of ten years ago is quivering with vexation and perceived failure. The me of today is holding up a gold trophy bestowed upon Self for including multiple fruits and veggies alongside each and every pie.

In my defense, the pizzas came from four different places, including two gold star joints. We are now totally certain about which pizza sucks and which pizza doesn't. A+ in pizza study.

The Olympics were, by and large, delightful, but I cheered the closing ceremony tonight because I simply cannot stay up through the 11pm - 12am hour for even a single additional night. I'm 40 people; that time has passed. 

I believe that other than Ryan D'bag Lochte and his misguided posse, our athletes comported themselves in lovely fashion. Really, the Olympics is such a grand coming together of talent and sportsmanship. I love the Games. Until next time!

Do y'all know that during the past two weeks, a dream of mine has come true? My darling husband agreed that we could turn our formal living room (never used for that purpose) into a library!! As the incredible construction has taken place, Jack and I have been nerding out to beat sixty. We ordered a one million pound Oxford dictionary and were literally chagrined when it was not delivered yesterday as promised.

UNTIL a kindly neighbor who had received said tome walked it over, and we cheered. 

Literally. Look at Jack's face!

"Jack, do you want to look up the first word?" I asked, hoping he'd say no.

"Oh yes, Mom. I will look up.....Indonesia." 

What the hell? Why? I mean, great but where did that come from?

Anyway, if you don't know, Indonesia is part of the Malay archipelago. And so marked our foray into the kazillion page book, a tiny, tidy J eternally ticked by Indonesia. We have all taken a pact to mark our initial, IN THE NEATEST HANDWRITING POSSIBLE, by each and every word we look up forevermore.

I'm so thrilled with and proud of this new room that we will all love but especially Jack and me. Oliver's primary response so far has been, "I don't love the knobs you chose. Why couldn't you have gotten neon green ones?"

OMG, I feel SO lucky. We weren't really supposed to put anything on the shelves until Tuesday, but for the love of patience, we waited five whole days and the paint has simply got to be hard enough by now. It's going to be so much fun to fill these.

I love these little family traditions. They're the glue, really, the threads we weave together over the years that make family durable over time, even when times are tough. Like possibly the coming weeks.

We have also resurrected Pi Guy and Roach and the games we play with them.

Pi Guy, in case you've forgotten, is a wire man clothed in a Pi jumper and trousers that Jack made in art a couple years ago during his preoccupation with Pi. Periodically, he'll put Pi Guy somewhere ridiculous, like suspended from my shower head or from a shirt in my closet, and I'll counter by seating Pi Guy on Jack's toilet or hanging precipitously from his headboard. 

This is an utterly delightful game.

In true Oliver fashion, he plays this game with an entirely too realistic rubber roach that my aunt Renee sent him. She knew exactly how much Oliver would adore this roach, and adore it he does. I awoke recently to find said roach sitting on top of the water glass on my nightstand. I put roach on Ol's bathroom faucet. He tossed it onto my rug. 

revolting and, mercifully, fake

Tonight I made the boys dinner and then T made us dinner, and then he and I watched two episodes of The Americans (we are slightly obsessed), and now we're going to bed, and all is well. 

I cannot tell y'all how much I love okra. And shrimp. 

On figs and cats and torches and summer coming to a close

Tonight Jack convinced me to drill a small hole through a stick he'd found so that he could insert a match and light it, thus making an Olympic torch. As you may not be surprised to hear, a match burns pretty quickly, so "torch" was an ephemeral status.

"No, Mom, I've got it! We need gasoline!"

"No, Jack, we're not pouring gasoline into a handheld twig. Thank you. Goodnight."

"Moooooooooooom."

"No."

30 minutes later, T and I are presented with this.

Another 60 minutes later, I check on the children to find that both have drawn red marker and black ink pen beards on their faces and are wearing Italia hoodies. Oliver is drooling onto his pillow-whilst gnawing on corn last night, another top tooth dislodged and so he is now minus his front four which is really pretty significant- and Jack is still awake which does not bode well for tomorrow, the final day of camp.

The good thing about camp ending is that I do not have to pack another lunch until next summer.

The bad thing about camp ending is that camp is ending and we have three weeks left until school resumes. LAWD! SO MANY HOURS IN A DAY!

I will seek refuge in the Nut who continues to be adorably imperious and delightfully plump, and I will continue to encourage anyone listening to vote not only Donald Trump off our island but also Ryan Lochte. At least he hasn't resurrected his grill.

Today I admired and photographed figs and also cooked the boys a lovely dinner that required no more than three teeth to eat and then made a rainbow carrot and raisin salad. The evening light glows so becomingly this time of year; if you can avoid the mosquitan bandits out for all your blood, you will be rewarded with beautifully lit, no flash photos. 

As an added bonus tonight, I leave you with this truly HYSTERICAL Ode to Synchronized Swimming. 

Reentry: a mom leaves, returns, and restructures family life

Reentry

In mama parlance, the week following any child-free getaway is known as reentry. Every time I go away, I receive a flurry of friendly check-ins in the days after my return: "How's reentry going?" "How are the kids behaving?" "You ok?" I also send these notes to my girlfriends following their no-kids travel.

Sometimes sweet, at other times, reentry sucks.

When I first glimpse the boys after any multi-day separation, I find myself death-gripping them in loving embraces and also looking over them with some remove: do they look older? more tan? have longer hair? any missing teeth? It's funny how a relatively short time can look as if much more time has passed.

Return strategically

What looks long often feels very short, and before you know it, you are back.in.full.bore. For this reason, I urge you to return home from your vacation after the kids are asleep and, for a bonus, when they will go to camp or school the next day.

This realization was thrust upon me last Sunday because it takes most of a day to get to the east coast from its western counterpart. I left California at 9am pacific time and walked into my home at 9:30pm eastern. I was tired and felt grimy. I needed food. Because of all of that and because I was still hanging on to the peaceful zen I'd acquired en vacances, I was fully aware, pretty much immediately, that I was grateful the timing had worked the way it had. 

I could settle back in, cuddle with T and Nutmeg (both fairly quiet), get some sleep and then wake with the boys, rested and ready for the reunion. Rested 6am hugs and squeals and the inevitable sock in the face by some flailing little boy limb is definitely something I can do; it is preferable to hugs, squeals and the inevitable sock when also dirty, tired, and strung out from air travel and fellow passengers.

Consider that a return might be an opportunity for a dynamic shift?

That first morning, I hugged and nuzzled and packed lunches and kissed my bigger/taller/tanner/longer-haired/teeth intact children goodbye as they left with T and headed to camp.

And then I exhaled and looked cheerfully upon the eight hours of solitude ahead. 

A carpenter arrived to do some work, I unpacked and did laundry, caught up on emails, grocery shopped and showered, all the while musing about what felt so good about being away and on my own besides the relative novelty of it.

• I engaged with interesting, funny, inspiring not-related-to-me people for a week straight.
• I had alone time when I needed it and stimulation and new opportunity when I needed that.
• I learned stuff, used my brain, thought deeply.
• I slept more than seven hours each night.
• I took time to read and exercise and also to sit and do nothing. I felt no guilt associated with any of that.
• I didn't do anything I didn't want to do.

On the one hand, all of that seems like Vacation 101--or, Seeing Best Friends and Attending a Neat Conference 101--but on the other hand, it doesn't seem like a laundry list of Xanadu pipe dreams (the Olivia Newton-John Xanadu, y'all, not Kublai Khan's). 

In other words, it seems like the sort of living that daily life could more closely approximate.

I sat with this a-ha wonderment all day. In the garden, in the shower, while buying toilet paper, and while transferring darks from the washer to the dryer. And I became determined, hellfire determined, to point our family dynamic (or my dynamic within the family?) toward the vacation-at-home north star.

I picked the boys up at 4:45, overjoyed to see their happy, dirty faces. They're at Calleva right now and are outside all day- fishing, kayaking, rapid swimming, rock climbing, pony riding, shooting bows and arrows, traversing ropes courses, and working at the farm. They come home filthy. Filthy!

Their ankles are ringed with dirt, toe cracks stuffed with nature's detritus, faces painted with a blend of river water, sweat, and muck. Their lunch boxes, oh lord, y'all should see and smell their lunch boxes. And I think of all that is just the sort of thing kids should do and be during the summers. I love it!

We headed to 2 Amys to resume our after-Calleva tradition of Monday dinner there.

Avoid overcompensating

Often after I return from time away, I overcompensate. I "make up" for leaving, and within a day I'm exhausted. 

Not this time. I walked slowly, I did not rush. I did not answer every question shot at me, nor did I look at every line drawn in real time. I was present and engaged but I kept some for me, not least by refusing to look out the restaurant window when they went outside, pretended to be dogs by crawling on the ground, and lifted a leg in faux-pee. I cannot encourage that, y’all.

On Tuesday, J was talking a mile a minute while simultaneously asking me to engage in 85 ways, and look and respond and see. I could feel my heart quicken under the onslaught, but instead of freaking out as the tidal wave approached, I took a deep breath and with love in my voice and eyes said, "Sweetie, I'm not going to interact like this. I'm not going to be on, on, on all the time."

He said, "Ok, Mom. Right!" because this is not the first time I've said all of that but it might be the first time he could hear how much I meant it. The tidal wave petered out.

He (more calmly) told me about camp and I told him how great my trip was, how good for me it was, what I learned and what I enjoyed. He quietly built something in Minecraft, and Ol expanded the Lego base he's been working on for two months. 

For the second day in a row, I didn't even consider going upstairs to ensure that they bathed. I said, "Sweeties, go on up and shower, and then we can have dinner and start our movie."

Wednesday and Thursday, same song third and fourth verses. I taught a class and registered for a multi-month writing class I've eyed for a while now. I worked in the garden and got a mammogram (tip to all who've not yet entered this stage of life: Don't, under any circumstance when you're in the vise-grip, look down. You do NOT need to see your breasts in that state of being.) When the boys are home, I give them a lot but I keep some for me.

Leave and Let Everyone Shine

My week away (a must for all parents who can fly the coop for a bit) and my determination to hold on to a good amount of that way of living has been wonderful for me but also, I think, for the kids. Tom is a great dad but he does not consider doing, and never has, some of the things I do in terms of parent-child interactions. There's a lot to be learned from that.

He also likes to do some things that I really don’t, like taking the kids swimming for two hours and painstakingly building light saber hilts from wood and PVC.

Since I’ve been back, I’ve let him keep the reins he took hold of while I was gone. I mean, if I don’t let someone else help drive, how can I fault them for not doing so? He has gotten up with the kids every morning, done breakfast, made coffee, and driven the boys to camp. Jack jumped on the bandwagon two days ago and packed his and Oliver’s lunches on his own accord. Excuse me, did someone steal my child and replace him with an engaged-in-household affairs doppelganger? I accept!

The thing is, T feels good when he knows he’s helping me. As well, it is meaningful for him to be equally involved when he’s home because of how the kids respond. They establish their own relationships on their own terms, not on mine.

When Jack steps up and receives truthful, thrilled praise, he beams, learns a lot about giving back and helping, and is inclined to do more.   

As I did by virtue of leaving (and let me say that a week may sound long, but it really reset everything in the best way), I also need to step back when I’m here. I need to ensnare my Take Care of Everyone in the World compulsion and toss away about 30% of it because not only does it take agency away from others but also it’s just too much to shoulder.

When the dynamic has shifted, don’t turn back!

There have been moments this week in which I or the kids have reverted into patterns I really don't want any of us to return to. Fortunately, because I am still rested and zen and they are at camp from 8am - 4:40pm (these are really good hours, y'all), I've had the reserve to both realize what's happening and alter course, back toward the vacation-at-home north star.

Quantity of time spent together really isn't as important as the quality of it. Equally true is that each of us must honor and make time for all of the facets of our lives that make our souls sing. When we starve a few, the whole is weakened.

I came back from my week away as a happier, more fulfilled mother and Tom and the boys were thriving. Here's to this being our new normal!