Happy 8th Birthday, Ol!

Eight years ago today, my darling Oliver was born. Two weeks early! It was a Tuesday, and as Jack was not yet three and so only had school three days a week, he and I were snuggling on the couch reading. My water broke, and Jack looked at me with some wonder and asked, "Mama, did you tee-tee on me?"

From the mouths of babes.

Despite the early, surprise "I'm coming!" Ol then took his sweet time and finally emerged at 4:16 that afternoon. A St. Patty's baby (to join his July 4 brother; we are so festive)! I've always liked that his birth time is the date of my birthday. 

Oliver has been an absolute delight ever since. Truly, his light shines so bright, and we are all made better by his being a member of our family.

He is a sensitive child, deeply attuned to people and circumstances around him. Once, when he was very little-maybe 2?-and we were in Lake Charles visiting Nanny, we placed him on her hospital bed so she could see him better, and he sat there, quietly and presently, for a long while. It seemed unlike a reaction most young tots would have.

Not the same but very similar and indicative.

Oliver is an innately empathic person with a wise soul and a creative vision that makes our lives more beautiful, purposeful, and joy-filled. Recently, I had my feelings hurt, and because I trust his judgment so much, I said, "Ol, what would you do if a friend hurt your feelings?" "Well, mama," he replied, "I think I'd go play with someone else." Indeed.

He's also funny as get out, sure footed as they come, and I have long said that based on its festive, bacchanal spirit, there's really no better day than St. Patrick's Day on which he could have been born.

I mean, one of the things he most pined for this year was this set of three enormous, glittery nesting eggs. When Tom asked him this morning, "Ol, why did you want those eggs?" he replied, "Why wouldn't I?"

The giant egg with other eggs inside.

I am a better person for getting to be Oliver's mother. It is my complete fortune and joy, even if this birthday focuses on his Minecraft obsession which I don't really understand or much care about. At least it's not Pokemon! At least this little boy is mine.

The cutest big brother!

The Minecraft cupcake toppers I made out of fondant. These went to Ol's classroom for that celebration. Now working on his actual cake.

What takes the cake

Sometimes, in the blurry dervishing darkness of too much noise and too many demands, I think about cake and how much I’d like a slice. One generous slice of moist devil’s food with a perfect crumb and just enough frosting –do you call it icing?- to make the confection sleek rather than shrugging.

A cake like this withstands the gentle pressure of a fork’s slender tines only just before succumbing. For a moment the shape rendered by cake and indent made by the utensil’s push resembles one of those simple down-and-up lines young children draw to resemble birds in flight. Then the bird is gone and I’m left with a bite of cake to savor and the time to do so.

Truth be told, this cake is most sublime when I can sit in silence with it, a cold glass of milk just beyond the upper right rim of my plate. In this setting, nothing vies for attention: the cake gets it all. More accurately, my enjoyment of it does. I needn’t rush my bites or my chewing. I won’t worry about choking when someone asks a question and wants the answer now. No greedy eyes will covet my cake, no one will ask me to share. I can close my eyes and experience the cake in my mouth, from first touch on my tongue to bittersweet farewell as my swallow whisks it south.

And then I can do the same thing again and again until my plate is but a crumb-dotted palate of what was.

*a freewrite from today's class

Stream-of-consciousness and pink and legacy

I am sitting in my pale gray womb chair, feet propped on its matching ottoman, everything from the waist down blanketed by a corally-pink and white throw. It's a muted pink, not saccharine or sickly, but rather a nod to my love of the color, to the need I feel to sometimes throw a bit of not blue-gray-brown into my masculine'ish love child of a modern + mid-century home.

I've had a love affair with pink for as long as I can remember, and I am A-OK with that. There is really quite a diverse spectrum housed under the umbrella term "pink." Really, it runs the gamut from the blindingly neon to the loud but infused-with-purple magenta to the horrid, too flatly opaque Pepto shade through the perfect English roses and ethereal peonies to the pale-but-not-anemic lighter shades.

Hot pink, piglet pink, baby girl pink, Carnation pink (that disappointing Crayola hue that never seems to assert itself)...The list goes on, but suffice it to say that I am, mostly, a fan. 

Which is why I bought this throw that, in all honesty, matches almost nothing in my home but goes well enough with this chair (which is mine; I got it for my 40th birthday) and makes me happy.

The point of this early-onset tangent is a slight one. It's simply to place you just a touch, because tonight I am pooped and have retired to my chair and the quietude of my room early tonight.

Tom has been home since March 1 (he is enjoying a much-deserved vacation between jobs before starting his new role as CFO at a company here in DC on March 20) which has been both rare treat and alone-time zapper, the kids have had irregular school schedules due to various holidays, conferences, and the pending snowstorm which two hours ago meant a preemptive canceling of school tomorrow, and that behemoth mulch pile that both took many more days than expected to deal with AND is still not fully dealt with. Tonight found me mulching neighbor's yards, random neighborhood trees, and offering with exceedingly enthused madness "all the mulch you want" to anyone who passed by.

Life is so much about finding our rhythms, isn't it? For those of us who thrive on routinized days, from the highly structured to the more relaxed here's-what-I-might-do-around-mealtimes approach, for those who find structure imposed on them via children or career or other duties, the removal of that overlay can be both exciting and stressful.

What I have noticed is that in times of flux, the non-necessities and "luxuries" easily, too easily, fall by the wayside. Sure, the mulch juggernaut loomed, but what really beckoned was an empty page, empty pages ignored for weeks now. 

This evening, a friend mused about thinking now about the answer to 'what do I want the story of my life to be later, when I'm reaching the end and looking back?' And really, that's a great North Star to keep in mind. 

To another friend struggling with a shitty week I wrote, "Literally right now writing about the times in which 'normal' routine falls by the wayside and what gets left in its wake. I am seeing, literally now b/c I'm hellbent on writing even if its crap, that what is flotsam and jetsam in the wake are the things, like writing, that keep me sane. So clearly those things are wrongly labeled f & j and I need to more unapologetically value them."

Funny how sometimes all the roads lead you to a pale gray chair and a corally-pink throw and a glass of wine and the loving response to your kids and husband that "No, I'm off duty now. I'm on my own clock now. I'll see you tomorrow."