peevish mama

Oh, the jubilation that preceded this picture! Makes every iota of driving, of sweltering or freezing on the sidelines, of washing long stinky black socks totally worth it. And really, truly, the title couldn’t have gone to a sweeter group of kids. Good sports, hard workers, soccer lovers. They are good in many ways.

As far as championship games go, it could not have been more dramatic and nerve wracking. 1:1, into overtime and then a shoot out. I literally had to do some yoga breathing it was so intense. I’m not sure I’m cut out for this kind of sports stress.

They sure are, though. HURREFFINGAAAAY!!!

Summer. It goes so fast that the only thing I can possibly do to catch it, is to try to be still when there’s time, motivate to do new things when there’s time, run from one thing to the next when there isn’t time, and take a few pictures along the way.  Last year, when I did a Summer Snaps post, I realized that our summer was indeed chocked full of moments, good moments – we were just careening through with nary a second to dwell. So here it is. A second of dwelling.

We kicked off summer with Devil Baby’s birthday. Sweet six.

Later in June we watched the Euro 2012 Championship on the rooftop at Brit’s Pub. España v. Italia, lots of heat, humidity, wild gesticulations and cheering. I’ll say this: it is good to spend time with soccer people. Never have I been more content to sweat under a patio umbrella with a Crispin Cider on ice. Saint James and Dash were in hog heaven.

The kids swimming with Foxy Brown at the hidden beach on Lake Harriet is pure joy to watch. The doodle can swim. Wish we knew more places to take her where we didn’t have to be so clandestine. Anyone?

I love the Fourth of July because it involves swimming, barbecues, beer and fireworks. This year it fell smack dab in the middle of a brutal (by my standards) heat wave, but we managed to squeeze in all the elements anyway. Nothing like a steamy night with kids and friends, watching magic light up the sky.After too many days of slogging through air as thick and warm as cotton candy, the heat wave broke and this mama felt ready to conquer the world. Dash was on nights, so I took the kids for a hike at Dodge Nature Center, where we had the place to ourselves, save the quietly grazing barn animals. By some stroke of luck, everyone was happy to explore, take the more tangled looking paths and generally feel our way around the pretty grounds. We had never been there before and were lulled and welcomed by the humming insects, the whispering grasses and the cool dappled woods. Not every adventure works out, so when one does, I know to say a little prayer of thanks and put it in my pocket as a small triumph.

After the nature center we were famished, so we stopped at Mandarin Kitchen for dim sum – another first with all the kids. We sat down and were immediately enswirled in the cacophony of the restaurant. The flurry of cart drive-bys was so quick and confusing, that we just kept saying yes, yes, yes to anything that looked good, and within minutes our table was covered in mysterious delicious crispy things. A moment of stunned silence was followed by a fit of giggles as we surveyed the feast ahead of us. The kids were so game to try it all, it made me happy. We are definitely going back with Doctor Dash.

Somewhere along the line, it seems, we all put bumper stickers on our minivans that say Extraordinary or Bust. At least, that’s what this NY Times article posits. As a society, we are so fixated on success and accolades, on concrete, external and preferably loud and bedazzled celebrations of our (and our children’s) accomplishments, that we’ve forgotten what it means to live an ordinary, magical life. Everyone is a genius who is destined for greatness. Except that’s not true. So why not step into that chasm and live there, and live there well?

As someone who started out fully outfitted in the trappings of success, including the trim little lawyer suits, and dropped out, I HAVE to believe that the small and ordinary things I do for my family mean something. This blog is an attempt to find weight and truth in the things that don’t end up on a resume, that don’t get me a pat on the back from a partner in my law office, that don’t bring me money.

But even I, who has every reason to try to redefine success for myself, fall short when I start to feel like I’ve fallen short. Even I, whose last shred of self worth is tied up in this, does not know how to answer this simple question: Does she live up to her potential? Depends who you ask, I suppose. But certainly, don’t ask me.

I love this article and that someone is saying hey, there’s more to life . . .

I love the idea that my soups and sauces and swims count for something. I love that my kids know that I do serious food shopping at the farmers market, that before age 12, they know about fresh eggs and delight at the sight of a bright orange yolk. That’s because of me and it is not nothing. I may not be closing multimillion dollar deals any more, but I have a brood of food lovers, readers, dancers, swimmers and laughers. And it’s because of me.

Right here, right now, riding this jittery wave of my morning coffee, I’m taking credit. In this moment, I’m not going to be shy about not “doing” anything in the conventional sense. I’m taking back the little stuff and holding it high in the air like a banner.

Because it matters. It has to.

This Pumpkins cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide is an old fave of mine. Smashing Pumpkins were Doctor Dash’s favorite band for many years in the 90’s and thereby mine by extension and osmosis.

Today I’m dedicating this song to myself and anyone else feeling like they’ve been hit by the summer landslide. Everyday I’m the cruise director, the sunscreen enforcer, the camp counselor, the cheer leader, the chef, the maid, the chauffeur, the laundress and the referee, and I’m weary.

Well, I’ve been afraid of changing cause I’ve built my life around you . . .

In this many years, I still haven’t cracked the code of surviving June intact. But I have figured this much out: only a few more weeks. And then the bliss of August. And then school begins. And then I start pining for summer.

Pine now. Embrace the landslide. Enjoy the song.

Doctor Dash doesn’t ask for much. Especially when it comes to this blog. To him, this is my deal. I know he reads it and likes it, as only the patriarch of this little family would. I know he couldn’t care less when I neglect it. But once, just once, he said – I wish you had done a post about our L.A. trip. Boy, so do I.

If this thing I do here, this writing for nothing, this writing to no one, has ANY point at all, it’s as a spot to stash our memories and family minutiae. If some of you like to visit and if you happen to find something that makes you laugh or look at your day a little differently or feel anything at all, then wow, that’s huge for me and definitely a cool and worthy byproduct. But even after all these years, I still don’t (or can’t) believe that to be true, and so when I write at all, I write for me, for us.

So here it is. A slightly belated Fathers Day post. Because even if I’ve said everything I have to say about Fathers Day, this Fathers Day was its own new day and worth noting and loving. Just like Dash. And Dash doesn’t ask for much.

On Sunday we drove to a suburb with a carload of kids, ours and other people’s, for a soccer tournament. For me, there is no better sound than a bunch of boys singing along to the radio. I play along, I turn it up, I sneak glances in the rear view mirror and shimmy in my seat because this top 40 music grows on you like a FUNGUS. Doctor Dash has more high-brow musical tastes than I do, but he’s not immune to the fungus.

If you had told me ten years ago that he’d be helming the wheel of a dirty beat-up minivan, pumpin’ Nicki Minaj with a bunch of crooning soccer boys and two little girls giggling and turning around in their seats, I would have laughed. And yet, he has stepped into this role rather elegantly and with a lot of humor – it fits him like a glove. The game turned out to be a heartbreaker. And it rained, hard, for the hour that we huddled on the sidelines clutching a 2:1 lead to our chests only to have it yanked into a tie in the last second. Oh. Sports.

When we got home, everyone scattered to their own corner of the house to wait out the rain and chill. Late afternoon the sun came out and we dusted ourselves off and decided to take Foxy Brown for a walk. We meandered around the lake, stopping to watch a family of wood ducks, eventually ending up at the Rose Garden and Peace Garden. We hadn’t planned on it, but I would need more than one hand to count the Mothers Days and Fathers Days we’ve spent there.

Sometimes no plans are the best plans and by some stroke of grace, the mood throughout every member of this moody little family was relaxed, goofy and very much about being together. Simple, easy, lovely.

Happy Fathers Day to Doctor Dash, my dad and my father-in-law, my brother, Golden, and all the daddy-os I know who try every day to make their families feel safe and secure, and don’t get to bitch about it like the moms, and only get a proper thank you in a quiet park on a breezy Sunday evening.

My girl turns 6 today and if there is any truth to the old wives tale of the difficult years for kids being either even or odd, then we’re in for a good one coming up. Five was challenging with sweet DB, yet it still remains my favorite age. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – kindergartners are pure magic. They are bright, curious, without guile, hilarious and verbose. LOVE.

This past year, Devil Baby put her kindergarten teacher through the ringer. She had her Spanish teacher pulling her hair out, she brought her music teacher to her knees. Turns out, Devil Baby didn’t really change much when she went to school. At least, not until she did. Slowly, over time, with her lovely and creative teacher working overtime to figure her out, Devil Baby learned how to bend a little. How to be a good citizen even though she could really give two shits about being a good citizen. How to not do something she really wants to do, especially when that thing she really wants to do is to make the other kids laugh. She’s funny and she knows it. I called a meeting with her teacher in February because I was in a panic that she was being so naughty she would start to be rejected by her peers, but her teacher assured me there was no danger of that. They loved her shenanigans. The teachers, not so much.

If being a class clown weren’t enough, this funny little lady also developed an irrepressible need to whistle. This is the thing I want to remember most about Devil Baby’s fifth year of life. She purses those plush little lips of hers and out comes music, clear and sweet. She picks up tunes like pebbles on a beach. I don’t even think she knows when she’s doing it, which is why it became problematic at school. She would whistle when the teacher was talking, whistle during quiet time, whistle during music class, whistle during prayer service, whistle when she had been told to stop. I know Devil Baby is awake in the morning because I hear her whistle before her feet hit the floor. I happened to be flipping through some old pictures on my phone and found this one of her whistling while bowling. It’s just what she does and I hope it never stops.

This Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros song is a particular favorite of hers to whistle, not surprisingly. We saw them in concert a few weeks ago and had a rollicking good time. I fear peevish mama can’t keep up with the music reviews anymore, but I’ll dedicate this one to my baby who’s no longer a baby. This song is for my girl, who as she turns six, is defined by music, laughter and stubbornness. I’d say, it’s a winning combination.

I love you, DB. You are one and only and I thank my lucky stars for you. Happy happy happy day, girl.

This past Sunday, I found myself standing in a park at twilight, watching my son and a group of his friends sprawled on a big green hill in the distance. They had been there for hours, celebrating the end of 6th grade with pizza and frisbee and water balloon shenanigans, and now a cluster of them had simply dropped onto the grass – haphazardly like a handful of strewn pennies, and far enough from us to avoid the hook. These kids have been around long enough to know that a cluster of newly arrived moms means another twenty minutes, easy.

Bone tired and barely able to string two words together after my weekend at Notre Dame with my old friends, one would think I might have been in a hurry to go home and get to bed. But lucky for Saint James, my list of ailments after my weekend of debaucherous catching up included a swollen knee (I was disinclined to climb the hill), no voice (I couldn’t yell for him) and more emotion than my heart could bear.

In my addled state, I actually had to step away from the other parents before anyone saw me welling up. I walked a few paces toward the hill and simply watched. This is how it all starts.

Kids in the grass. Talking. Talking.

The funny thing about a reunion, is that it really does play tricks with your sense of space and time – especially if you also happen to have a group of friends who are balls to the wall and ALL IN from the second their feet alight from cars and planes in South Bend. It was as if no time had passed. We partied like 21 year olds partying like rock stars and that’s not something this mother of three gets to say out loud. But we did.

And these friends, who for months, sometimes years at a time have been so far away from me, were suddenly within arm’s reach. Space and time collapsed so that I felt like a 21 year old and a 41 year old at the same time. As if by magic, I was the girl who squandered words and time and laughter like they were going out of style. Who assumed the world to be chocked full of lionhearted boys who would always make me laugh and soul sisters who understood everything about me.

But now I’m old enough to see how lucky we were and to be acutely aware of the pleasure of laughing again with the people who have, hands down, made me laugh more than anyone else in my life. This kind of connection is not a given, it is a gift and to have gotten that gift as early in life as we did, is nothing short of a miracle.

There is a wit and a wildness to my friends. A keen sociability, an inability to sit still, a yen to stir up trouble and an insatiable fun tooth. I got a good arts and letters education at Notre Dame, but it was with my friends that I learned the important things. The stuff about people and friendship and love. About making yourself happy and making other people happy. About planning for fun. About being grateful. About having a nose for adventure. About pleasure and laughter.

About noticing.

And so it is because of you guys and thinking of you guys, that I found myself standing alone in a park, letting my son linger on a darkening hill with his friends.

Because I know that this is how it all starts. And I know that this is everything.

I always feel weepy around this time of year (and no, it’s not entirely because I’m looking at a landslide o’ kids in the dirty grinning face). The end of the school year is a marker of passing time. Another grade under the belt. One step closer to being an adult. A reminder of just how quickly this is all going. And I can’t even begin to talk about the fact that my last and final kindergartner will soon be bound for first grade. FIRST GRADE! It’s all a white knuckle ride from here, friends. The first 5 years. Slow. The next five. Fast.

But this particular end of the year, I’m distracted by my impending 20th year college reunion. On Friday, Doctor Dash and I will go right from kindergarten graduation to the airport, where we will hop on a plane that will take us to Notre Dame circa 1992. I’ve been spending my time this week freaking out about all the randoms I’ll be seeing, making plans via vast email and text webs with our crew of friends, laughing with Doctor Dash every time he looks at the website and gives me an update of attendees and planning my outfits. Looking good is imperative. Obviously.

So this last week of school, the week of field days, year end parties and bags of school detritus coming in my back door, I sort of forgot to be sad. I forgot to be mindful and thankful and weepy and swollen hearted.

Until this morning.

I found a note from Devil Baby’s 8th grade buddy in her backpack and I sat down to read it out loud to her. One of the sweetest things our school does is to pair up each kinder with an 8th grader for special events and masses throughout the year. It’s a golden friendship for those babies starting out their school lives and to see a pair of 8th grade and kindergarten buddies holding hands is to look at bookends of childhood. Devil Baby’s 8th grade buddy looks like a woman next to her, but really, she’s a girl who still draws flowers and hearts on her envelopes. Here is what she wrote:

Dear M,

I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for being the sweetest, dearest, funniest and best kindergarten buddy ever! I loved getting to know you so much!!! This music box was a gift to me when I was your age and the knecklace (sic) is from Ireland. I think the crown will suit you perfectly as well. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

Love always,

Molly

p.s. I’m so glad you came to my play and thank you for the flowers! Maybe I’ll see you on the stage one day!

My heart is officially bursting. Oh, me.

How do we even begin to bear this kind of loveliness?

And how do I tap back into this feeling in about four weeks from now?

As you know, I’ve got it bad for Bon Iver. Not only does he make the prettiest music imaginable, music that makes you stop what you’re doing and listen, he can also blow you out of your seat live with his giant band. I think Justin Vernon is brilliant, I ‘m a sucker for a male falsetto and he’s got a good one. No one does this song better than Bonnie, but man, does Vernon bring a whole other level of yearning to it. I found myself holding my breath. I Can’t Make You Love Me.

I used to have them all the time: driving uncontrollably fast around a curve, forgetting to study for a test, not being able to find my parents.

Last night I had a doozy – it involved trying to make an important flight with my kids, and not only was I wearing deliriously high heels, I ended up forgetting to get boarding passes, misplacing two of my three children, going to the wrong terminal and having to run back through the airport’s absurdly dense outside landscaping. I finally woke myself up after I discovered that my phone was out of batteries and there was no way to get through the topiaries in time to make my flight. Not to mention the small matter of two of my kids being somewhere other than with me. Also, I broke a strap on my heels.

What the hell?

This couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that we have NINE MORE DAYS OF SCHOOL, could it?

When my guys were tiny, I felt they had me literally on my toes. Every eye in my head, and then some I didn’t have, were trained on whoever happened to be at the age most likely to stage dive off the top step or slip quietly unnoticed to the bottom of a pool. It’s exhausting work, being the mama of small children and I’m here to say that it does get better.

For about a nanosecond.

All is well and good until one day you wake up and realize you’ve got to find those extra eyes in the back of your head again. You’ve got to keep your ear to the ground and cultivate a nose for news. You’ve got to be available and aware because everything gets quieter and more subtle.

What’s more, in the midst of developing these heightened senses, this deeper awareness of what’s going on INSIDE the heads of your kids, you have to pretend to be totally chill. You have to hone your casual opener to the finest edge, so they don’t even hear the envelope tearing, don’t even realize the contents are spilling out.

And while on this tightrope of respectful, cool, hyper vigilant awareness, you need to juggle, like, twenty three different eggs in the air. Because just as things are starting to get tricky in this new way, the shit hits the fan and your family is busier than ever.

This is where I am right now. I am barely keeping it together, barely keeping up – which is frightening, because I suspect this has only just begun. But I dig it. These young people are getting VERY interesting. Curiously, I think I might be better at this than I was at that. Maybe it’s because I have a keen connection to my goofy, confused, scared, and overly imaginative 12-17 year old self. For some reason, that part of my life is really vivid for me, and for better or worse, it may just come in handy.

How about a little country croon for all the mamas out there, muddling through with grace and humor? And when I say grace, I mean tripping and falling and flubbing and sucking and brushing ourselves off and starting again. Because every day is a new day, and every day we get to try again. Thank heavens.

A voyage never fails to stir everything up inside of me so that when I’m back home, everything has settled back into its place, but in a slightly shifted way. I suppose that’s a rather inartful way of saying that you come back and see things differently.

I went to Argentina with my mom and my official position was that of wingman. I was there to help with heavy burdens, both luggage-wise and emotional. You see, my uncle, her brother, has melanoma and she (we) needed to see him. To say hello and then goodbye.

Maybe it’s because I was traveling with my mother alone, or maybe it’s because I was back in Argentina where I was born, or maybe it’s because we were there to spend time with someone we might not see again, but the time I spent there has a dream-like quality to me now. It’s as if the days had fuzzy edges, one bleeding into the next and although the time passed quickly, I have the sense that I was acutely aware of each bittersweet moment.

Strangely for me, I went into a zen-like state where I felt completely content to sit for hours in my uncle and aunt’s kitchen, drinking tea and chatting. Various members of my giant tribe would stop in to visit and I would sit (always in the spot nearest to my uncle) and listen. I had no agenda. There was nowhere else I needed to be. Nothing I needed to do.

I was there as a wingman. My job was simple. I made sure I could scoop up sadness where I saw it and tuck it away. I made sure I basked in my uncle’s kindness. I made sure I got a few beautiful pictures of the four siblings together when they happened to be in the same room. I took pictures of old pictures at my uncle’s house – that’s him with my aunt when they were itty bitty. Aren’t they cute? They met when my aunt was 13. Their’s was a love for the ages.

Argentines don’t mess around when it comes to conversation. We talked of faith and death, of health, of blessings, of family, of distance, of voyages, of politics, of so and so who knocked up so and so and acted like he didn’t know it until an intermediary told him he needed to check out the kid because it looked just like him and he did and it knocked his socks off and then he fell in love with and got married to the knocked-upee. They needed to catch my mother up on all that good old fashion juicy small town stuff. Oh, the stories.

My relatives are story-tellers and there is a certain Latin drama that runs through their tales making everything sound just a little bit magical to my Americanized sensibilities. There is something about this place and these people that resonates deep in me and I feel simultaneously very at home and yet very foreign. Dash saw this picture of me with my two cousins and one of their daughters and he said You can tell these are your people. You look like them. You fit with them.

I do.

If all had gone as planned, I’d be in Buenos Aires right now with my mother. Instead, I’m killing time in the Atlanta airport, the boredom so intense that I’ve been driven to a desperate act. Posting from my iPhone. This is tricky business, this thumb typing. This placement of words into a box so tiny it threatens to preclude both rereading and revision. Never a good thing.

I tried to go to Argentina yesterday, when I was supposed to, after hasty preparations and and huggy goodbyes. I should have known I wouldn’t get far. Supergirl begged me to do my imitation of the Japanese tourist from Disneyland screaming “Capaten E O!” into her cellphone. In a moment of weakness, I relented, which was not only a misguided attempt to leave my daughter with one last funny memory (it’s hilARIous, you should hear me) should I meet an untimely demise on my trip – it was also stupid, because everyone knows it’s bad karma to make fun of people before air travel. Especially international air travel.

Long story short, mechanical issues – missed connection to Buenos Aires. The only reason this is even something worth writing about is the almost unbearable sense of lightness I had walking into the airport yesterday. But not lightness in the way we like to talk about it. I felt unmoored. As if at any moment I’d go flying to the ceiling like a mistakenly released helium balloon.

It is disorienting to leave my whole brood, knowing full well I’m putting huge distances, multiple countries, between us. Ok, I just realized I don’t know how to scroll back, so I really am reduced to 3 line increments. Consider this performance art.

What is even MORE disorienting, is to spend 4 and a half hours in MSP, listening to music, paging through Harpers Bazar, half enjoying it, half gripping the seat so I don’t start to drift up toward the ceiling, half wondering if my persona makes any sense here in this airport without my peeps and THEN end up having to go home. To reenter life and have one more night before I have to go back to the airport and try again to go to Argentina.

The sliding doors make a sucking sound as I leave the airport, and just like that, I am my weight once again. I am substantial. Grounded.

Long story short: burgers, the couch in a puppy pile, a couple episodes of Malcom in the Middle, pjs, two more chapters of that unicorn book with Devil Baby, one more warm entangled night’s sleep with Dash, an early morning lake loop with Foxy, blueberry pancakes. One more look at that broken pinky toe on Saint James. More smooches and goodbyes. Take two.

Which brings me to this piano bar in the middle of terminal E of the Atlanta airport and this tuna sandwich, this second glass of wine, and these streams of strangers going places who don’t even seem to notice that I’m in danger of floating away.

Sending a little California-love your way today. We’ve been happily ensconced in a cute little bungalow in Venice Beach for a few days and man, I could get used to this. The people watching is out of this world and I’m glad to report that surf culture is alive and well.

L.A. is kind of blowing my mind. It’s just so vast and as we’ve been opting for side streets instead of congested highways, we’ve seen the city up close – colorful, diverse, bizarre, beautiful.

It’s a city of such extremes and the yearning is palpable – yearning for riches and fame or more simply, for a livelihood, a love, another bottle of booze. And those leggy palms, whispering in the wind: not all that glitters is gold.

Saint James got a phone for Christmas because it was time. It’s a cheap little phone, not a smart phone. He can only use it to text and call. This way, when he roams, we can reach him and he can reach us. For the first couple months the phone was languishing somewhere in his room, usually out of batteries. Now it’s fully charged, in his pocket or in his hand at all times.

A few days ago, Dash heard it vibrating when he was saying good night to Saint James. Saint James played dumb and pretended it wasn’t his until Dash found it on his nightstand and saw that there were texts from a bunch of girls. They had a chuckle, Saint James was a little red-faced, but no biggie. I tried to look at the messages later that night, but he had deleted everything. Foiled.

Next came the talk about not deleting messages because we need to make sure everything is kosher, followed by the talk about being a gentleman and a good guy and a good friend in person, but especially in writing.

He seems reasonably open to our talks, although the texting is definitely on the upswing. Dash and I are doing the dance – all a’dither with each other about our kid texting with girls, but totally chill about it with Saint James, because it’s no big deal – you know, guys and girls should be friends. We’re trying to convey the rules and parameters, while giving him space and respect, while still letting him know we have an eagle eye on him, while allowing him to feel like his own person, while spying on him, without him feeling like we’re spying because we’re not really spying because everything we’ve read and heard says parents need to monitor this stuff, while not embarrassing him, while embarrassing him just enough. It’s a pickle and I, for one, am floundering.

THIS IS MY BABY BOY WE’RE TALKING ABOUT.

This morning I picked up his phone to see if he had stopped erasing messages per our talk and I was horrified to find that the texting with many girls has jelled into an awful lot of texting with one girl. An AWFUL lot. And aside from the purposefully atrocious spelling and grammar, these texts were surprisingly substantive. They texted about books, movies, soccer, the new kid, homework and I had to stop reading because it just went on and on and on. Dash came home from work and I was in a state.

I don’t know how to feel. I know this is normal. I know this is good. I’m happy he’s able to have a seemingly normal friendship with a girl at the ripe old age of 11. I’m happy he’s a social creature. I’m happy someone else gets to see what a good kid he is. But but but . . .

I just feel like I’m standing on a cliff, the winds of change whipping fiercely around me. And I’m ill-prepared. This is my baby boy we’re talking about.