Crooked Pigtails

Posting

There are several reasons my posting to this blog has been so infrequent.  Life is busy.  I'm tired.  I'm driving the girls to school or home from soccer practice.  Homework.  I'm watching Glee.  I'm breaking up cat fights.  I'm bloated.  I'm just lazy when it comes to maintaining this space.  But, the largest reason posting here is so infrequent is that I am struggling with my girls privacy. 

It was simple to tell the stories I wanted to document when they were really little but, as they grow, so does their need for privacy, and I am struggling to balance wanting to tell a story, to preserve a memory, and understanding that they are not my stories to share, not only my memories to preserve.

This is especially true for Harper.  At twelve years old, she is filled with angst and hormones and the humiliation that she has parents.  She is still Daddy's girl, but she wouldn't be caught dead kissing him goodbye when he drops her off at school in the morning.  She needs me as much now as she has ever needed me, but I am supposed to fade into the background of her public life.  The very fact that we are proud of her is totally embarrassing.

Harper is my mini-me which tells me I am in for a ride.  A ride, I will figure out how to respectfully document.

Bittersweet Easter

The bunny came hopping through our home last night, and the girls had a grand ole time (I may be mixing holiday metaphors here, sorry about that) this morning collecting the resulting droppings.  Much, much too early this morning, before the coffee completed it's brewing cycle even, there was lively rejoicing and giggling and sugar ingesting--as if sugar would only be available for a limited time and that time was rightthisminute fortheloveofgod--and there was wonder. 

It didn't matter that the damn (tired) bunny forgot to remove a price tag (or four) from the non-edible portion of the stash.  Price tags that may or may not, by the way, have coincided with the freshly crumpled Target bags in the recycling bin; I'll never tell.  Because crumpled Target bags are so very unimportant to this holiday...we're talking about wonder here, people, and the fact that Addie still possesses it so fiercely that no measure of perceived evidence to the contrary can shake her belief system.  I don't know how much longer we, as a family, can cling to this particular shred of innocence, and it is bittersweet, as a parent, to be whisked along in it's peaceful flow.

Harper has been "in the know" for a couple of years now, and our family exists in that limbo world of one child having achieved a right of passage and one child quickly approaching; everything celebrated in tandem with separate expectations and joint anticipation.  It's a privilege to watch them together, to witness the tender grace with which Harper treats Addison's innocence then winks at us with the wisdom of someone years beyond her own. 

That's the thing about being the first born: the exileration of knowledge is tempered by the responsibility to protect your younger sibling; your milestones never belong solely to you because they are the beginning of a forward movement for your family, the first step to a change in time and space for that entire family, a signal that the family is growing, taking on a new shape.

And, that's the thing about being the baby of the family: your milestones never belong solely to you, either, because they represent the completion of the family step forward.  Every stage Addison leaves is left behind for all of us, every new knowledge she gains is a sliver of innocence we loose that no one is going to come behind her and reintroduce to us.

The girls forge forward and redefine us daily.  Harper paves the way and Addie pushes us out of our comfort zones.  We've traded our diaper bags for backpacks and tote bags and, heaven help us, purses of their own that contain wallets and lip balm.  We've traded baby teeth for orthodontic consultations.  We've traded the Wiggles for the Wizards of Waverly Place, and ballerina wall hangings for magazine centerfolds of pop stars. 

And, it's good.  It's all good.

But, for at least one more year, the bunny remains.  And that is even better.

Zoning laws

Remember that episode of Everybody loves Raymond where Ray and Deborah learn they are expecting twins, and decide they want to buy a house, so Ray pulls out a map and begins to circle the zones, the safest-distances-from-family zones: the drop by unannounced zone, the overnight stay zone...remember that episode?

Our entire families live in the overnight stay zone. 

Though we have cultivated a pretty spectacular support system of friends in our little town, neither my husband nor I lived in Connecticut before his job relocated us a few years ago, and we have no family here.  In plenty of ways, the overnight stay zone is great: we don't have to struggle with the day to day bullshit stuff that we witness our friends dealing with because their drop by unannounced zone parent/sibling/cousin/ex-boyfriend's third wife is constantly materializing at the most unexpected, least convenient times.  We aren't required to attend weekly Sunday dinners, and we don't worry that we will open the local newspaper and read that a cousin was arrested for DWI, again.  The overnight stay zone offers us a protective bubble.

But, sometimes I don't want to live in a protective bubble.  Sometimes I want to meet my sister at a coffee shop for a quick visit or at the mall for some shoe shopping.  Sometimes I want to be able to drop my kids off at my parent's house so that S and I can have a night alone, and the girls can spend the night soaking up quality time with Grandma and Pop, eating too much ice-cream or potato chips and going to bed long past an acceptable bedtime.  Sometimes I want the holiday dinners to be at our house.

We are not traveling for Easter this year.  Miss H requested that we stay home.  She wants the bunny to come to her house, and we think it is a reasonable request.

Reasonable request, yes, but the decision to stay home, to not travel, was still difficult for us to reconcile; on the one hand, the trip seems natural. We do it because we've always done it.  We follow that familial pull "home" for the holidays.  A pull that continues to grow stronger because, while far from elderly, our parents certainly are not getting any younger, and neither are we.  We seem to have entered that stage of life when it seems more and more important to make sure we show up each year, when nothing seems as absolute, and the reality of how quickly things change creeps in with alarming regularity.

On the other hand, our girls are getting older too, and beginning to have opinions and ideas of their own.  Miss H is seven, to her this is her home, her familial pull tells her to dig her heels in and stay in Connecticut.  She wants the Easter Bunny to come to her own house.  How can we deny her that?  How many more bunny years does she have?  How much longer is she going to believe that a rabbit hops into our home each year distributing plastic eggs filled with coins and chocolate? 

So, we are not traveling this Easter.  In a couple of weeks, when school is closed for Spring break, I will take the girls to New York for a visit, but this Sunday they will be searching for eggs in their own back yard---which I wish wasn't so tightly encased in a protective bubble.

A cold in December

I am slowly emerging from a congested fog.  Miss A and I spent the better part of this week on the couch reading books and watching way too many consecutive episodes of The Backyardigans.  My house is a complete disaster, I haven't vacuumed in days, it has been even longer since I dusted, and I will get to the accumulated laundry as soon as I can find the machine, which, I believe, is under the pile of whites. 

I did manage to get my holiday cards to the printer last night, thanks to a desperately impromptu after-school photo shoot, during which the dog misbehaved and the girls refused to smile at the same time in any single shot.  Don't even ask me when I think I am going to have time to actually retrieve the completed cards, let alone address and send them.  If you usually get a card from us, we didn't forget you, I promise it's coming, it just may not arrive before February.

But, I digress...

Yes, my house is a mess.  Yes, my cards will be late later than I want them to be usual.  Yes, my "to do" list is about five, full sized, notebook pages, front and back, long.  Yes, the dog just vomited on my laundry room floor (and, yes, he just ate it before I could get the paper towels).  Yes, my Christmas CD's appear to be missing.  Yes, all of our decorations remain in a bin in the basement.  Yes, I had to cancel my hair appointment earlier this week because I was too sick to go, and, yes, that means I will be attending a holiday party tomorrow night looking like an overgrown skunk. 

But, dang nabbit, people, if that photo shoot didn't make me smile.

**photo removed**

A Sunday in Autumn

This morning I found $28.00 in the pocket of an old pair of khakis I pulled out of the closet to wear to church.  I wasn't able to wear the pants; they were too big and too wrinkled, but the money took my family to brunch after mass.

The weather today was nearly perfect so we decided to take full advantage and go to a local orchard to pick apples and select pumpkins for carving.  We had planned to do this yesterday (though we usually do it a bit earlier in the season) but the day got away from us, and for a while, we even considered allowing the tradition to pass this year altogether.  And, by we I obviously mean S and I because, as this photo clearly demonstrates, the girls enthusiasm for the pumpkin patch remains strong, they had no intention of allowing this particular tradition to pass even a single year. 

So, we picked apples (mostly Ida Reds which are not our favorite, but were the most plentiful) and we selected pumpkins, and we took the obligatory photos in front of the measuring stick this orchard provides each year---which, when you think about it, is a brilliant marketing strategy because there are dozens of orchards in our area but we go to the same one year after year for that one photo that shows how the girls have grown.

It was a bittersweet day for us; we always enjoy the fresh air and the apples, but it did not go unnoticed that this is the first year the girls are tall enough to pick the apples without needing S to lift anyone up to reach the fruit, or that Miss H was the one to explain to Miss A the necessity to twist the apples from the branches like this. It is the first year that I don't have a photo of someone riding on Daddy's shoulders.

If we pick apples every year for the rest of our lives, I believe we will remember this year, this first major shift in the tradition, when our girls first began to claim this fall ritual for themselves.

One moment I look at this photo and see them running to the pumpkins, and the next moment they are running away from us, on to their own lives.

When did that happen?

That's my girl!

At dinner tonight we were talking about the night when Miss H was about five months old and she suddenly decided to stay awake nearly all night long fussing and screaming and, in general, just being inconsolable.  S and I were reminiscing about how green we were as parents back then, how completely ill equipped and overwhelmed we were, how we had wondered if she was suffering from sudden onset colic, if there even was such a thing, because the stack of books that I was frantically plowing through while he paced with the baby were not giving me any useful information, how we began to think it possible that she knew we were clueless or that she simply hated us, and how we finally came to figure out that she was just hungry.

Miss H and Miss A listened intently as we reminisced about that night, about the sheer frustration and about the eventual relief.  We laughed as we admitted changing her diaper a dozen times even though she was not wet, and explained  that we had cuddled her in the bathroom near the sink of running water because that had previously always worked to calm her but wouldn't that night.  Like most children, I suspect, our girls love to listen to stories about themselves as a babies; especially when those stories include us as fumbling, learning parents.  And like most parents (I also suspect) we love to share those stories with the girls, not only because they love it, but also because in doing so we remind ourselves how far we have come as parents and as a family; how everything, the best and the worst, is in a constant state of transition. 

Last night I was overcome by the nostalgia of the moment, of the connections between then and now; realizing that the cluelessness never quite disappears, but that we somehow muddle through, doing the best we can do for our children, even when we have felt so incompetent.

So we told them about how she had never had any solid foods up to that point, how she had only had Mommy's milk or an occasional bottle of water to drink, and how, in a single act of desperation, we decided to give her some of the cereal that had come (in sample packets) in the goodie bag we carried home from the hospital when she was born.  The only problem was we didn't have any formula to mix the cereal, so S had gone out in the middle of the night to get some. 

S patted me on the shoulder and made a silly face at the girls as he told them how we had worried that we weren't mixing the cereal correctly, and how terrified we were that she might choke.  Or not like it, or that it wouldn't work to calm her.

Miss H almost did choke last night at the dinner table, laughing when we described the way she had devoured that first cereal, how we had had to make more for her, how she seemed to have been absolutely famished.  S joked with her about how someone so itty bitty as she had been could have been so in charge of the adults around her, about how smart she was, how she always knew what she needed even when we didn't.

It was a sappy sentimental moment for me; my girls are growing, growing.  They are getting old enough to understand the joy in these stories; Miss H was taking it all in, basking in the wonder of this historic moment from her babyhood.  Our perfect Norman Rockwell family.  I was just about to excuse myself from the table to go and dry my eyes when Miss H turned to me with that look on her face, the look she gets when she is figuring something out, putting all the pieces together, the Miss H look that says she is not sure she is getting the entire story:

"Wait a minute," she said, "you mean there are stores open in the middle of the night?!!"

Just stamp a big "L" on my forehead!!

When I was in New York for my sister's bridal shower last week (a post in itself) something happened.  My mother, my aunt, and I were sitting at my parent's kitchen table finishing some last minute details for the shower; it was late, or early, depending on how you look at it, basically, it was the middle of the night, and given that the girls and I had been awake since 5:00 that morning, traveling, I was tired.  We (my mother, my aunt, and I) were visiting and laughing while creating some extra "advice" cards for the shower, in case people forgot to bring the ones we had sent in the invitation, or wished to write something additional when they arrived at the shower, when my aunt placed a check in front of me.

A very large check.  Made out to me.

She explained, as I picked my chin off the table, that she was not giving me money, but that she expected me to use the money to purchase this vacuum cleaner, as a house warming gift, for the house that we bought, a year ago!  Oh, and did I mention that, when we bought this house, a year ago, my aunt sent us a very nice house warming gift?  Back then, a year ago?  Well, yeah, she did.

To say that I was less than gracious about this fabulous gift would be a gross understatement.  I was shocked, and I have a very difficult time accepting kindness, gifts, love, really, I have a difficult time believing that I deserve these sort of things, so, I refused the gift.  Then she refused my refusal...lather, rinse, and repeat...

In the end, my Aunt gave us this fabulous house warming gift because she believes that we should have it, and though that is difficult for me to wrap my brain around, I am nothing short of thrilled, grateful and anxious to actually purchase the vacuum.

On the long trip home, I thought about it, and I cried about it, and I decided that the best thank you note would be one that I would make myself, and would include a photo of the girls using the vacuum.  Only, we haven't actually purchased the vacuum yet, because this is the week before school starts and we have been scrambling to get ourselves prepared.  Also, it is temporarily sold out at the store with the best local price.

Yesterday, I realized that I could no longer wait for the adorable-children-vacuuming-thank you card, because it had been a week, much too much time to hold the thank you on such an extravagant gift, so I sat down and wrote a thank you note.  Which I immediately mailed.

With a 37 cent stamp!

You see where this is going?

That's right.  Because I am such a dork, my Aunt will have to pay postage to receive the thank you note I sent her for her extremely generous, wonderful gift!

So, how was your day?

Nine things I learned on vacation

1.  Allowing your children to have their faces painted (to the tune of $9.00 a piece) at a water park is not the smartest idea.  No matter how well you prepare them for the inevitable, it will still be tragic when the paint washes off three minutes after being applied.

2.  Ice cream will help.

3.  Even though Cookie Monster is your three-year-old's favorite Sesame Street character, she will be terrified of him in person monster because he is "too blue" and doesn't actually carry cookies to share.

4.  The tooth fairy will find your child no matter where she loses a tooth.  And, even as the tooth remains missing somewhere in the water park, the famed fairy will make good.

5.  After losing two teeth in the span of a week, every time your six-year-old glances at you with her new toothless smile, your heart will melt, and you will be reminded of  the way she smiled at you when those teeth were brand baby new.  This will make you smile back at her, but it will be bittersweet. 

6.  If you are stung by a bee, it will hurt.  If you are stung close to a bone, like, say, your pinkie knuckle, it will hurt for days.

7.  You will be grateful that you were stung, and not one of your children.

8.  Floating down the Rambling River on an inner tube while your three-year-old drifts to sleep on your chest is one of the most peaceful moments in all of parenting.  You will want to freeze time or, at the very least, stamp this memory in your mind.

9.  Realizing there are only two weeks remaining until school starts is not as happy as you would think it should be. 

If you see our Grandma today...

be sure to wish her a Happy Birthday!!

And, tell her that we miss her and we love her and we will see her very soon.

Thanks,

Miss H and Miss A

Thank you

all of you.  All of you who sent emails and cards, all of you who commented here and left voice mail messages; your good wishes and kind words have been a tremendous comfort, and I appreciate each and every one of them.

We are home.  We are tired.  We are sad, but we continue. 

Tomorrow this blog gets happier.  Because my grandmother was nearly 91 years old, she had sisters, daughters, grand-daughters, and great grand-daughters.  In her day, she washed, brushed, cut, permed, bleached, curled and parted a whole lotta hair into pigtails.

And every single one of them was crooked.