Monumental Tooth

My last post was honest, difficult to write, depressing as all get-out and necessary. It can't remain as my home page, though. Why not?

Here's why not:

I dare you to look at this picture and not at least smile a little bit. Besides the hilarity, besides the casual arm flung around her little brother, look at my jBird's giant front tooth. That, my friends, is a monument.

It is a monument of tooth-bone to change, to growth, to shedding childish things, but not quite growing into the permanent things, either. I love that huge, solitary front tooth and sometimes I just want to touch it. My jBird is a patient girl, but she rarely indulges me in this. I don't blame her, but still. Look at that thing!

Her teeth will all eventually come in and straighten out (hopefully without a whole lot of orthodontic intervention) but for now, I secretly cherish this giant front tooth that is so awkward, so strange and out of place in her face, but a talisman of more big things to come. For now this is more beautiful to me than any movie-star-perfect smile in the world.

These two - with their life and their energy and their constant vibration - these two wear me out and they worry me and they drive me straight up a wall sometimes. But look at how they laugh. They lean into each other and laugh. With their messy hair and hand knit sweaters and heads full of nonsense and of course the giant tooth, they laugh. I can fume around and stew and boil about things that are so much bigger than they are, but you know what? These are the biggest people I know. They have virtually no control over their lives, they have very little say in the things of the world; they get told what to do, where to go, how to behave and to go and pick up all their Legos. Their mother is moody and somewhat unpredictable, she's intense and she's insane and she loves them with all her heart. And still they laugh. With eyes closed, without self-consciousness or guile - so hard, they laugh. This is their default mode.

And that monumental tooth. Well, you know how it is. It brings me to my knees and it makes me laugh, too. So hard. 

He's 5 Today

He was a surprise, twice.
He continues to surprise me.

His first word was "Go!"
His second and third words were "I'm stuck!"

His favorite person in the world is his big sister. Hers is the only opinion that matters.
His second favorite person in the world is me. I love a mama's boy.

His big dark eyes, cowlicky hair and dimpled chin have been wooing the ladies since he was born.

He slipped into our life 5 years ago today without a whole lot of fuss and completed our family in a way we never could have imagined in advance.

He's my Sweet and Tender Hooligan.

1000 Miles: Day One

4802 steps. This is just shy of half the number of steps that my iPod set as my daily goal. Whoa. I will have to do some math to figure out the approximate distance. Not now. My plan for launching this grand experiment has coincided with a sudden case of sinusitis for me and my monkeys, so we are having some slow days.

Nonetheless, here are some things I've noticed already:

1. I have become conscious of the steps I am not taking. Every time I sit down at the computer or on the couch, my brain suddenly pokes me and says "No steps here!" and I feel like I should get up and walk somewhere.
2. My pedometer doesn't always count the "steps" I take when I'm crawling.
3. I crawl around a lot more than I ever realized.
4. It may take me years at this rate to walk a thousand miles.

It was just such a summer day, though! We needed to get out of the house. Starting with "baby steps" since no one was feeling particularly terrific, we did some chalk drawing in front of the house. I really wish my pedometer counted crawling steps because this involved a lot of crawling.

Do you recognize the painting?

We were emboldened by our artistic efforts, so after cleaning up hands and knees and filling bellies with lunch, we decided we all felt well enough to go to the park a few blocks from our house.

 These were my favorite steps of the day. Brilliant, surreal color, losing track of everything except the laughter of monkeys, the direction of the breeze, and keeping the kites in the sky.

 Then we needed a lot of underdogs.

Then a nap.

Until next time... keep stepping!

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!"