Small_Inklings_

Lately

I'm not sure how I feel about blogging anymore.  What, exactly, is my purpose?  Originally I wanted a place to write about my reading, and about my thoughts, my questions.  My first blog became too personal and caused me some grief.  I became much more guarded in my writing.  This blog is now read more by aquaintances, local friends and family than by on-line friends, and thus has become less of a place to express myself and more of a family journal/travelogue/photo album.  I rarely write about my reading.  I rarely write about my work.  I almost never write about my questions.  I love to write about my children, but I often wonder if this is really the best venue for it.  I wonder whom I have become as a writer.  Certainly some writing is better than no writing, but this is not the writing I aspire to.  I wonder if I could ever really be the writer I imagine, because I am not sure I could ever be as honest as necessary in something that would be read by the world at large.  I don't find my position in life to be very conducive to revealing my thoughts, for various reasons.  I could write under a pseudonym, perhaps, but that would also feel dishonest, I think.  So, I'm just going to let this sit for a bit, and go some other directions.  I'm still reading and enjoying the blogs of my "regulars" and my family, and will probably return in the fall.  Just wanted to explain, in case anyone wonders what has happened to me here.

Visitors on the Porch

See these people?

I love these people.  These are some my most favorite people on the planet, not only because they are brilliant, kind, funny, creative and good-looking, but because they made possible the most relaxing week I've had in oh, maybe four years?  It really says something about the pace of my life that spending a week on the constant go with a horde of fourteen-year-olds is relaxing, but it's true.  Oh, the luxury of going to bed at night and waking up in the morning with nothing happening inbetween!  The luxury of having just one bag to pack, one mouth to feed, one set of teeth to brush (as you can tell by that selfish description, I get a D- in chaperoning skills, sorry Jason.)  And on top of those delicious luxuries, there was the main point of the trip:  exploring famous places in the far and exotic East (Coast, that is).  I love to travel, love to explore, love the flights of imagination such activites lead to.  I think my very favorite part was touching the tree that we supposed had been touched by Emerson, Hawthorne, Alcott, Thoreau, and probably other literary giants, next to the boathouse of the Old Manse in Concord.  All these places existed in the map of my literary memory--scenes from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Virginia, Concord--and it's an amazing experience to have that memory united with a memory of the real place.  For example, I saw the place where Asher Lev rowed with his mother in Central Park.  That image, already imprinted on my mind from the twenty or so times I've read the book, took on a new clarity and definition which it will never lose.  Same with the art in the Met, the statues, the monuments and especially the architecture.  I doubt there is an American alive (who owns a TV or has been to the movies) who doesn't have a haphazard mental map of NYC..  And because of my wonderful family, I didn't have to worry about my young 'uns, who still love me in spite of my absence.  The knots in my shoulders unknotted.  The fog of perpetual sleep-deprivation lifted.  I feel so disoriented:  smooth-shouldered and clear-headed, what do I do with myself now?

The night before.

I'm leaving on a jet plane tomorrow night, a red-eye flight, and so when I should be storing up some sleep, I'm wandering on the computer instead, because I have butterflies.  It promises to be an exciting trip--places I've always wanted to see, good company, and FREE.  But I will be away from my little ones for eight days--and reason cannot convince me that there is no possibility they will forget me, feel betrayed, traumatized, unloved, and abandoned.  They will be in good hands.  They will be perfectly safe and well and they are used to being away from me--they spend eight hours a day away from me on a typical day anyway.  They did fine when I left for three days.  I doubt there is much difference between three and eight for a baby--time is time, it passes, Mommy comes home, and the time away is forgotten.  But those butterflies . . . they won't stop fluttering, regardless.

A fourth.

No acrostic can contain you, no insect is beneath your notice, no dinner passes your lips, no monster can quail you (except that T-Rex at the zoo), and no parent can resist your charm, even in your grumpiest state.  You pray that we will ride trachtors in heaven, that you will never grow older than ten, and that your parents and grandparents will never die, because then who will love you?  You are determined to explore every stream to its source, to unearth the why beneath every 'cause, to lay claim to all that is yours, and then some.  Since you could talk you have prefaced your name with "Big", announcing you were no baby.  But when I wake in the morning and find you once again draped over my pillow, hands curled around a sword or truck, and your lips tilting to smile at your dreams, I remind you silently that you are my baby yet, and I'm glad you're still little, for all that you think you're so big.

(Another fabulous Uncle card.).

(An adorable Grandma costume.)

(The irresistable face.)

Origins

Last weekend:

"Mommy, when you was a little girl, where was I?"

"You were just a twinkle in your daddy's eye.  Maybe not even that."

"A tinkle?  I hate tinkles.  I would have poked that tinkle right out!"

Today:

"Mommy, was I ever a spider?"

"'Fraid not, love, you've been a human boy ever since you were born.  And even before then."

"No I was not!  I was a spider tinkle in daddy's eye!"

Two days until his fourth birthday.  He's becoming wise in his old age.

A First

I have always considered acrostics to be the most annoying form of poetry, and yet, I can't help myself, it works so very well.  I have also always considered the use of the word "angel" in relation to children hyperbolic, but again, there it is.

Darling

Angel

Never

Irksome

Ever

Loving

Happy birthday (a week late) to my sweethearted boy, who takes life at his own pace, whose favorite pasttime is beaming at the world in general, and whom I have never, not for a moment, wished to be other than he is.  I know watching you unfold into yourself is going to be one of the greatest joys of my life.

(I forgot to give credit for the excellent photo bo my sister-in-law Anndee, whose photography business is blooming.)

Observations

Relocating at midnight, in the dark, in the rain, to an expensive motel forty-five minutes away on the second night of camping with a one-year-old can actually be a good idea.  Your husband won't even notice the van is gone, and you will be able to smile for pictures after breakfast.  Moms really shouldn't be expected to prove their capacity for endurance unnecessarily.

Fourteen-year-old boys may possibly be the funniest beings on this earth.  However, laughing at your students is very poor classroom management.  Getting the giggles is death to your lesson.  The last two weeks of school should consist of an enormous relay in which students run madly around the classroom and halls, bouncing trash off of each other and throwing edible objects at every open mouth.  Wait, they already do.  Well, they should make it official and drop the pretense.

The best way to disarm an angry mother is to meltingly declare your love for her in the moment before you add the last straw to the stack on her back.  I'm not sure which learned it from which, but it seems to happen with frequency around here.  It works best if you are still young enough to pronounce it "wub".  It is not as effective coming from the husband, but that's probably because his timing tends to be off.  You must place the straw after the declaration of undying devotion, not before (just teasing, Metaboman).

You can bond with a ten-year-old by simultaneously repeating the name "Bob Bobbert" as fast as you can.  This would probably also work with the fourteen-year-olds, except they would never stop.  I think secretly, way deep in his too-cool-for-you heart, my boy enjoys being embarrassed by his mama.  He is actually proud that I can do the finger-disco while driving--he bragged about it to someone else in my presence.

Forget $4.10 a gallon and buy dark chocolate and books, the only fuel that can drive you away from, rather than to, distraction.  Also, if your car is out of gas, you can stay home and eat the chocolate and read the books and let a substitute chase the screaming children.  In fact, if I were stranded on a desert island, I might opt for dark chocolate and books as my token possessions.  Barring a boat.

Stranded on a desert island is not always such a bad thing.  Stranded at your desk in a sea of paperwork and grading, is.  Not even a boat can help you with that one. 

Last year at this time I was out on maternity leave.  I would gladly go through labor again if I could skip the next two weeks. 

O, that the tides of time might swiflty rise and carry me beyond the reef of Integrade Pro, onto the soft sands of summer's solace! 

Sweetness

This year has been the second hardest of my life.  It has also brought me this perfect gift. 

I know about the bitter and the sweet.  The sweet is always worth it.

Speed racers.

(When I began blogging, my intention was to write about books.  Maybe a bit about school.  Perhaps kickstart a novel?  Certainly I did not intend it to be about my domestic adventures, and I most definitely did not imagine that this blog would turn into a sports page.  Such is my like-a-box-of-chocolates-life.)

"Where are we going in the next morning, Mom?"

"To see Mr. Quiz's race."

"Is Daddy coming with us?"

"Not this time.  He has his own race."

"But Mom, when is my race?"

In the future, son.  It is your destiny.

   

He of the flowing hair ran twice--his team won their heat in the 100 meter relay, causing him to leap about with joy.  A very long, hot hour later, during which the baby slept droolingly against my neck in the backpack and the uncle and the grandmother kindly took Critter on various adventure walks around the grandstand, he ran in the 4x4 Mayor's mile relay, for which his team had qualified as one of eight out of all 26 elementary schools..  A slow second runner and a dropped baton put our anchor in last place as he began his run.  Despite his affinity with the wind, he wasn't able to move up until ten feet before the finish line.  Then in a burst of defiant speed he shot up to finish seventh by a hair.  That's my boy:  will not be last. 

This boy wasn't last either.  In fact, he was doing quite well until another rider slung a feed sack into his tire.  In spite of five minutes lost changing wheels, he still finished in the top third.  I am very relieved that the tire was the only thing bent out of shape.