Crying on the Playground

It has been a while since I have stood in the middle of a playground and cried.

This is a half-truth.

I have stood in the middle of a playground and cried more often in the last 4 years than I did in probably my entire childhood. But it still catches me by surprise almost every time. I have also stood in an auditorium and cried, in a school cafeteria and cried, and in a classroom, and one time in the hallway.

It's embarrassing.

But not really.

I stood on the playground of the monkeys' new school yesterday afternoon in the brilliant, warm autumn sunlight and cried. I was wearing large sunglasses, so my tears were mostly hidden.

I watched 300 little people in lime green shirts walk in circles and I cried.

I cried because all last week I was grumbling about how our state is lame and under-funds our schools; about how the powers that be think that things like art and music and theater and classroom aides and vice principals are luxuries in education and we have to go, hat in hand, to ask for money for our schools several times a year. And yet, on this sunny Wednesday afternoon, dozens of parents took time out of their schedules to count laps, hand out stickers and pretzels and small cups of water, to cheer for little students and to dance to loud music. I cried because people who didn't have to, happily wrote checks to be given to teachers in grubby little crumpled envelopes so my kids could paint pictures and sing songs.

I cried because there were hundreds of kids walking with purpose in laps around the playground, collecting stickers for each lap as if it were the most important thing in the world. I cried because they were laughing and singing and clapping and skipping and happy to do it, full of pride for their school.

I cried because after searching the sea of constant motion, all in matching T-shirts, I saw my jBird. She's a cygnet on her way to a swan. She was walking alone with a goofy grin and an occasional shimmy to the music, her head tilted forward in determination and her little wings flapping. I missed her on her first few laps because I was looking for someone shorter, less mature, closer to the chubbiness of the baby she was than the long and lean and graceful young lady she's becoming. I cried because when she saw me, her pretense melted away and she came clopping over on suddenly larger feet and uneven teeth and breathless and said "I am having so much fun!" Because she asked me to walk with her and was still child enough to proudly hold my hand and giggle at my ridiculous jokes. Because she let go of my hand when I walked too slowly, telling me: "I need to do this."

I cried because my Hooligan cruised up with a friend in tow, their hands full of snacks and water, and told me they had 'Nilla Wafers. Because he is so very much himself, my slow and steady tortoise who stops for snacks whenever they're offered. Because he will happily participate in whatever is there and find a way to make it suit him. Because he is so small, but such a large presence there, whooping and singing and exclaiming about the food. Because he doesn't seem to care about anything but then saves important things up to tell me later. Because he wanted to sit in my lap and show me his stickers, but then realized he had to get up if he wanted to get more. Because he is still so much my baby, but goes mightily about his business.

I cried because while I watched the two of them holding hands and urging each other along, another mother, a stranger, told me they were sweet and I was lucky they were such good friends.

I cried for all of it. For the community and the generosity. For the absurdity and the silliness. For the determination and the spirit. For what is past and what is yet to come. For this fleeting moment on a weekday afternoon where I could be suspended in time for just a little while and watch them walk in circles. For the knowledge that they are really walking onward, heads tilted forward in determination, small wings flapping and growing stronger, ambling and charging and occasionally stopping for snacks.

I stood on the playground and cried.
It's embarrassing.
But not really.

They Bob

They bob.
They wink and wave and smile, fall over and get back up again.
They sputter and shake like puppies, bewildered and offended at a sudden change of events.
But they bob.

They float back to the surface, reaching for the sun.
Their energy.
It's as if they draw it from the flailing of arms and legs.
Like solar powered perpetual motion machines.

They've drunk half the lake by now.
Falling, mouths wide open, laughing.
Bellies full of algae, sand, plankton, small fish?
But they bob.

There have been wild whoops.
The excitement of a few dollars' spending money, some ice cream, a penny on the ground.
There have been squeezed-so-hard-eyes-shut-in-the-effort hugs.
The gratitude of small gestures, the dawning realization of a world so much larger than themselves.
There have been sullen mutterings.
The little indignation of inconvenience required of them.
There have been torrents of tears.
The injuries of person, of heart, of feelings that come from being the smallest in the room, the ones with the least say in things.
There have been shouts, giggles, mad dancing, the maniacal laughter of using that last ounce of energy to just let go.
There have been tiny snores and snuffles in the night, small bodies seeking solace in something familiar, to lie like a spoon and be sheltered, safe in the soft warmth of their origins that they know like breathing, like food.
There have been explosions of every color: mean red, the indigo of loneliness, the violet hues of twilight come too soon, the verdant joy that rolls like hills and breathes life into its surroundings, the firecracker oranges of cackling mirth, the stormy blacks of despair, indecision, exhaustion, frustration, concession.

And still they bob.
These large and messy presences, bound so tightly into small, lean bodies.
These impossibly buoyant little souls of whom much is demanded.
They roll with the changing tides, slip under, stand up, sputter, smile and do it again.
They reach out, grasp each other's wrists and tug.
They tumble, collapsed into a heap of each other and come up fighting.
Fighting for air, for space, for solid footing, for a place in the sun.

Love seems an inadequate word for what happens inside me for them.
They grip my viscera with their grabbing little hands and eyelashes and that tilt of small chins, a wink, a sudden tear or smile. The curves in the backs of their little knees, their strong little shoulders, the moles on each of their cheeks, their breath, those dark and endless eyes.
They grip me and they pull me up, an aching lightness fills me up.
They take me with them.
And they bob.

She's Eight

Pure joy. Opening birthday presents.

If she was a fruit, she would be a mango.
If she was music, she would be rock and roll.
If she was a flower, she would be a primrose.
If she was a color, she would be magenta.
If she was a fabric, she would be silk.
If she was a food, she would be a loaf of artisan bread.
If she was a politician, she would be irresistible.

She's indescribable, my jBird. She's tough and she's gentle. She's imaginative and she's literal. She's ladylike and she's messy. She's bold and she's humble. She's caring and she's practical. She loves babies and she wants to be an astronaut. She's an activist. She's persuasive. She's brilliant. She's a networker. She's intense. She's fair-minded. She's very, very silly.

She's a maelstrom that entered our lives eight years ago this week.

I've been reflecting on the last eight years and have been finding it difficult to put it into words. From the very start, she has systematically shattered any preconceived notions I may have had of motherhood. She has done it with a smile and a gentle, unrelenting spirit. Eight years later, she's still doing it.

When she was 18 months old, I noticed she was singing along with Frank Sinatra in the car: Gotchooo unda ma 'kin! 

Under my skin is where she is. I am madly in love with my husband. My Hooligan is my sweetheart and can melt me with a wink, but nobody on this planet is as viscerally attached to me as my little girl.

I go to bed every night feeling like I've failed her. Like I haven't been the woman she needs me to be, let alone the mother. I have this powerful, gregarious, magnetic little girl and I fear I will make her ashamed of me in my retiring and relaxed ways. She would not agree with me if I told her this. She would wail and hug and reassure and kiss me all over my face and tell me I was the best mother in the world, and then she would ask for Daddy to put her to bed.

I am honored that the job of mother has been entrusted to me. That I have been given this complicated, delightful little girl to raise. It is not my job to make her into something. It is my job to recognize that she already is something. Something amazing and wondrous and more than I could ever imagine. It is my job to hold her hand and guide her through. To teach her the things she needs to know to be a grownup. It is my job to celebrate who she is and teach her to do the same.

It is a fearful and rigorous work. But she makes it more than worth it.

Happy birthday to my jBird with all of her quirks and facets, her shining light.

Guest Post: Mom-Woman of Mystery

A huge thanks to Jewels from Frazzled and Frumpy for today's guest post. She's way cooler than she lets on and a mighty fine writer. She's been an agent of encouragement and inspiration to me since almost the very beginning of this blog.

I wonder if my kids wish I were cooler.  You know, more like the moms they see on TV.  The ones who are doctors saving lives, or CIA agents living a double life.  Yeah, that would be cool.   If their friends asked what I do , they’d probably avoid the question.  ("I don't know. She blogs or something.")

But, if I were an agent, my kids would be proud.  Agent Mom.

I could pick them up from school in my black Camaro, hiding behind awesome sunglasses so no one would recognize me.  I’d wear all the ‘hip’ clothes, and I’m sure I’d never say ‘hip’.  There would probably be a gun tucked in my jeans and my cell phone would double as an emergency transponder of some sort.  Sometimes, I would have to disappear in the middle of the night to jet off to a top-secret location.  But, I would always bring them souvenirs, like a t-shirt that said, “My mom went to Yemen and all she brought me was this lousy t-shirt.”

Instead, they’re stuck with me. Boring mom.  I drive my old car that’s littered with Wal-Mart receipts and diet Coke bottles.  My cell phone is just a phone and I don’t even know how to use all the features on it. The only thing tucked into my jeans is my shirt--and that’s on the days I’m not wearing sweats.  I use words like ‘hip’ and don’t understand their text language.  So uncool.

Maybe I should make them watch the shows I did.  I could definitely measure up to Carol Brady or Mrs. Partridge.  Carol had a station wagon and the Partridge mom drove that psychedelic bus.  Plus, my clothes are much more stylish than theirs- polyester pantsuits? Seriously.  I can feel my kids shudder.   And, I’m pretty sure neither of them even had a cell phone.

 Yes, I’ve got it all over the moms of the 70’s.  Who’s hip now?  

(A big thanks to Tangledlou for letting me guest post on her blog. I'm honored, because,  in the words of Annie Wilkes, "I'm your biggest fan.")

A Spoonful of Crazy Helps the Math Homework Go Down

"Let Nanny help you. Catch those digits and write them down before they escape! Naughty little numbers!" This is to be read in your best falsetto, bad English accent. This is how math homework gets done around here. My Jaybird does more math homework in grade 2 than I think I did in all of high school. If we don't do a little every day, we end up with the big, buff-colored packet of doom that must be vanquished on Sunday afternoon. In a flurry of broken pencil lead, carried tens and tears, we try to power through.

My little girl has been independent since she was born. Since before she was born. While I was in labor (and labor and labor and labor) with her, my midwife shrugged as my daughter spent hours refusing to crown, swimming around and getting tangled in her cord, pooping in her water and then suddenly launching herself out sideways: "She's just going to do it her way." This pretty much characterizes how her life has gone so far. Whatever preconceived notions I've had about "how things should go" have been pretty much chucked out the window with regards to my little girl. It's one of the things I love best about her, makes me proudest of her, and drives me the most insane. We of the strong female personalities can (gasp!) occasionally push each other's buttons. We are just similar enough to get all up on each other's nerves and just opposite enough to get all up on each other's nerves. Add to that healthy dose of independent spirit a bizarre, almost visceral attachment to each other; and math homework time can get explosive. She wants to do it her way. She wants me to be proud. She wants to succeed, and like her Mama, she has a hard time seeing sometimes how making mistakes are part of success. "Help me, Mama!" quickly turns to "I know how to do this!" and back again until we are both sweating and crying and covered in graphite and pink eraser shavings. Sometime last week I decided I didn't want to do this anymore, but I didn't know how to do it differently. Math homework drama was the subject of many late night, tearful conversations with the Chief Lou. Usually along the lines of "I'm failing completely as a mother because..." and some helpful cluck-cluck, pat-pat, kiss-kiss from the Chief Lou.

I guess my subconscious (or perhaps my alter-ego) had been working on this problem for me. Lou and the Hooligan conveniently disappeared to the library yesterday afternoon to give the Jaybird some space for thinking and doing about 50 pages of Sudoku-style math puzzles. "I'm right here if you need help," I told her and went about my business with my blood pressure already rising. So was hers. I heard a furious scratch scratch, rub rub rub, sighing from the dining table while she worked and I held my breath and waited for the wail. There was no wail, just a quiet sobbing: "Can I just do this later? I have a headache." My heart broke in half and out popped an English nanny.

"Tish tosh, let's look at these silly little numbers!" I bellowed, surprising even myself. She looked up and giggled while the tears were still rolling. "Why, that 3 hasn't enough to subtract 7! She'll have to go next door and borrow a 10. Hallllooooo! Mr. Six!!! May we have a 10 please and thank you very much? There, there, much better. Now subtract!" The Psycho-Nanny plowed on while, through what were now tears of laughter, my little girl worked out the problems. It took us almost an hour and there were still mistakes, still some challenging problems, but it was all smiles and laughs and "Oh my! I believe you've written pee pee! Such naughty words on math homework?! Oh no, those are just some backward nines. Oh my. Nanny needs her hankie." We were just finishing the last problem as Lou and the Hooligan got home. My Jaybird winked at me and whispered "Let's keep Nanny as our secret," before she turned to my husband and said, "Mom is so awesome, but I can't tell you why."

I know for a fact that if I had taken my usual route of being The Mom, patiently trying to explain and encourage, our homework session would have ended in its usual breakdown. Through that strange chemistry of mother-daughter pyrotechnics, it's hard for my little girl to ask me, The Mom, for help. But Nanny? She can help. She can even point out mistakes and convince that little independent soul to "soldier on, dear," when she starts to flag. This all sounds a little insane now that I've typed it out. But I've come to believe that motherhood is, in and of itself, a form of insanity. I would walk through fire for my little girl. What mother wouldn't? But I don't have to do that just yet. Right now, I can let Nanny do it for me.

Earning My Stripes

The other day at the park, there were a group of mothers with toddlers who looked to be about 15-18 months. That wonderfully dangerous age where they are suddenly mobile, but lack the sense to know exactly how to use this new-found freedom. While I was sitting on a bench, knitting a Sounders scarf for my husband and keeping my third eye on my monkeys, the toddler-moms were trying to have a conversation with each other about baby food making and the best walking shoes in between smelling bottoms, hovering near the end of the slide, and snatching wobbly little legs from the edges of things.

I caught a few sidelong glances from the moms and double checked that my own little playground monkeys were being careful around the wee ones. No problems there today. I figured I'd imagined the glances and went back to knitting. A few minutes later, as one of the moms scooped about a half a pound of sand out of her son's mouth for about the 67th time, she turned to me and said "When do we get to knit?!"

I remember all too well the hovercraft days. My wee hooligan ate so much dirt as a toddler, the doctor wanted him tested for Pica (turns out he was just suffering from an acute case of being two.) My J-Bird was born independent and out-going and would toddle off to chat with whomever was around, no matter where we went; often inviting them to our house or giving them our phone number that she had so proudly memorized. I remember not being able to finish a sentence before having to sprint over and catch one or the other of them standing at the top of the big slide, leaning their out-sized heads out over the void. One trip to the pumpkin patch a few years ago, while I was helping Jane struggle with the pumpkin cutting shears taller than she was, I heard the sweetest little voice behind me say softly: "Deee-wicious!" I turned just in time to see Joe taking a huge bite of the dirt clod he was holding. IT WAS AN ORGANIC PUMPKIN FARM! Do you know what they use to fertilize their fields?!

I remember viciously envying the moms with clean hair and jeans that fit. I remember fashioning a diaper out of public restroom paper towels.  I remember how giant and wild and solid and careening the 4-year-olds at the park looked compared to my little bowlegged adventurers. I remember unceremoniously scooping up squirming masses of legs and elbows and hoofing it out of Dodge before all three of us burst into tears of exhaustion and frustration.

And suddenly, I realized I was remembering this stuff. These things were no longer a part of my day to day existence. I have no idea now what baby food mills are the best on the market or what shoes are good for early walkers, but there was a time in the not-so-distant past when those very things occupied a great deal of my mental energy and precious free time. My monkeys and I have moved on to new preoccupations now that will eventually become irrelevant as well.

There are days that seem like they are 107 years long. Some nights, even longer. There are moments when you think you might just lie down in the sand box and kick and scream along with them. And there are definitely times when you think you will subsist the rest of your life on discarded Goldfish crackers, crusts of rejected sandwiches and 16 gallons of coffee a day; that the rest of your life you are destined to make small talk about bodily functions; that you will never again be witty or intelligent because perhaps half your brain cells exited through your birth canal. But suddenly one day, you're sitting at the park with freshly washed hair, knitting a scarf while your monkeys play nicely on their own two legs and sipping a cup of coffee for its flavor instead of gulping it for its restorative properties and taking a moment to enjoy the sunshine and the scenery.

 I'm nowhere near done parenting yet. Not even halfway. I could strangle every person who says "Oh, they grow up so fast!". But this sudden bit of perspective, provided in the plaintive question from a frazzled mom - "When do we get to knit?!"- reminded me that nothing is forever, even when it feels like it might be. We just keep trudging, skipping, catching, playing, changing, wiping, yawning, crying, laughing through these days, one after another until suddenly we find ourselves on the other side of something.

That day at the park, I changed colors on the stripes I was knitting, tried my very hardest not to look smug, and smiled as I told her "Sooner than you think."

Discovery Park

The winter had been mild, but brutal for reasons other than the weather. Seemingly for months on end, stuck indoors with first one illness and then another, circling our family like greedy, mucus-laden vultures. It shook me to the center. Made me question my beliefs about myself, my health, my children's health, my parenting prowess. I declared "Enough!" and bundled little bodies, sore with remnants of our latest bout. I stuffed my pockets with tissues, healthy snacks, a camera and a map and heaved us out the door in search of a cure.


The city is hemmed by natural vastness on both sides. The Cascades to the East, the Sound and Olympics to the West. Abundant forests, lakes, foothills, volcanoes surround us. Hulking, shimmering there, patiently allowing our farce of human progress until they decide to reclaim the land. It is this constant visage of the absolute enormity of nature while still having access to good schools, flushing toilets, cultural events and decent shopping that I love about my most recent home.


The kids were antsy as we wound a new direction through a residential area. They'd never been this way before, had I? How did I know where we were going? Was I sure we weren't lost? 
"Trust me, please, to be the Mama."
Their questions were literal, but the low boil of irritation they ignited spoke to my own set of questions on an entirely different level. How did they grasp that so naturally? Or is it just my inner critic speaking?
"No, honey, I've never been this way before."

The shadow of doubt infected our space, in spite of my reassurances. The oddly flat, well-manicured mid-century subdivision through which we were driving didn't seem like the wildness I was seeking. Slowing for speed bumps and watching for my cue, I think I held my breath a bit. Slowly, slowly, then - aha. There it was, my talisman: the small, slightly dated-looking, rainbow striped sign of a city park. With a triumphant flip of  the blinker and a tap on the brakes, I felt more vindicated than I should have. I was right. I did know the way. With that slight course adjustment, we left the landscape of tidy yards and ramblers for our personal frontier.


Over lunch we spotted a white rabbit, startling against the green underbrush. It stopped and watched us watching it before cocking its head and leaping off into the deeper forest. It seemed as good a sign as any that it was time to begin our descent to the beach.


The path was worn and well-marked and the kids enjoyed the freedom to dance or run or meander at their own paces. Stopping to inspect: witch's butter here, moss formations there, rocks, bugs, the first brave flower buds of late winter.


Across the meadow to the bluffs - the first lookout point to the Sound. I think it was then that they finally started to believe me that we were going the right way. Impatience, urgency - "There it is! I can see the beach! Let's go straight!" The futility of explaining that what felt like walking away was really the best way to go.

I watched their little legs and feet making their way down the steep and knobbly forest trail. Each step so much effort, distances so much further for them than for me. These two little forest creatures, gamely heading the direction I pointed them. Setting aside their doubts and plunging deeper into the evergreen glow of sunlight filtered through clouds filtered through cedars.


We rounded a bend as the cedars gave way to deciduous trees not yet in leaf. We three stopped to catch our breath and mine caught me. Unfolding before us, the wind and salt bleached trees, with bare limbs held high. Clothed in white, a crowd of supplicants, arms lifted in praise, frozen there in their dance down the hill to be baptized by sun and sand and sea. We took up their dance for them; eagerly, trippingly, breathlessly down the rest of the trail. At once blinded and inspired by the occasional flashing glimpse through the limbs as the ripples on the Sound grasped a little sunlight and tossed its sparkle up to us. In good faith we clamored through the last tangle of vines that completely obscured our goal until bursting, tumbling, gasping like birth onto the sand. 


Off they ran to dig, to hunt, to discover, to revel. The brilliance of the sudden afternoon sun was matched only by the shining, dancing, aching pleasure in my children's chilly, wind-kissed faces.
"Thank you, Mama! We made it!"