Extra . . . Something

At the beginning of the school year I had intended Cecily to go to a local preschool.  After looking at the options and visiting a school, I decided on St. John's Methodist preschool which is just a few blocks away in Buena Vista.  

Both Jonah and Caroline attended the West High preschool near Rose Park.  This was a good thing for both of them for different reasons.   And knowing that I would shortly be adding Cecily to the daily mix of lessons at home I felt she needed the opportunity to learn how to do something on her own with other people.  

As school approached the apprehension among the children grew.  They all knew Cecily was destined for the newest, most foreign experience yet in our Virginia life.  They all anticipated Cecily's first day of school with varying degrees of excitement and anxiety.  

Huddled together just days before school began, Jonah whispered to Caroline "Cecily is going to preschool in a church."

"Oh Cecily," Caroline exhorted, "you have to be extra good."

"And extra normal," added Jonah.

"And extra Mormon," Carlo concluded.

As it happens, she ended up joining a preschool co-op of all LDS kids and Moms, so she didn't need to worry about being extra Mormon or extra normal.

Becoming a "Townie" in Buena Vista - The Library

We lie in my big king-sized bed this Wednesday morning and breathe a bit as a family after the running of too many days on end and the puking in between the running.  We should be able to ignore the calendar when we are sick, but somehow we don't.

Cecily brought the virus home having picked it up on the dangerous streets of downtown Buena Vista . . . or possibly from some sneezing child at preschool - one can never be sure where they unknowingly consent to host a virus.  Cecily shared it with Ewan.  This is no surprise as Ewan is forever seeking hugs and kisses we are bound to share a bit of whatever it is that lurks on us.  Ewan shared it with Jonah.  This is no surprise as Jonah cared for Ewan so tenderly at 11pm when he was throwing up in his bed the night before.  Jonah shared it with Matt, but Matt has not puked since 1991 so his will has become stronger than any virus that has made the attempt on him in the last twenty-one years.

So far Caroline and I remain undisturbed, but for the puke on my shirt and neck, sheets, towels, floors, rugs, beds, and toilets.  It's just not my puke.  While Jonah slept in my bed yesterday Caroline and I did two math lessons.  Jonah woke up periodically and read enough to finish The Two Towers and then gently beg me the rest of the day to pick up The Return of The King for him which was on hold at our local library.

Finally, around 3:00 pm the girls and I walked into the library where Tori, the twenty-something librarian was waiting at the counter.  Before we could even say "hello" she had fetched our book for us, laid it on the counter and asked with incredulity "He's finished The Two Towers already?"

"Yep, he's been sick today, laying in bed either reading or sleeping and then begging me 'Mom, please go get my book for me' ".

"I love this kid," Tori exclaims.

I love this town, I think.  Much as I miss, pine for, yearn for, try not to think too much about the Salt Lake City Library, no one ever knew my name at that library.  We had to have been some of their most frequent patrons, but no one ever saw us come through the door and had our books picked up and checked out for us without us so much as having to produce a library card or even give our names.

Susie is the sweet forty-something librarian who is a "townie" through and through.  Which is to say she is pure Virginian, mumbles softly in southern drawl such that one westerner must lean in closely and listen hard to translate the loosely shared English.  She wears cable knit sweaters with flowers or seasonal decor such as reindeer or elves on them.  Tori calls her 'The Goddess of the Library' because she knows all the answers - even if you have to listen hard to discern them.

Several weeks ago I had all four kids at this very small library in the middle of the day.  As I was checking our books out Susie leaned in close and whispered "Your kids behave real good."
"Thank you," I replied as we watched a band of children who did not belong to me stomp through loudly, throwing fits and pulling books off the shelf.  They are not bad kids, just unsupervised kids who spend the limbo hour between school and Mom-getting-off-work at the library because they have nowhere else to go.

Recently Jonah returned a movie (The Secret of Roan Inish which you should watch if you have not).  He jumped out of the van and ran in to deposit the movie which we are not allowed to put in the book-drop.  He came back saying "Man, Tori was in there.  I wanted to stay and talk.  For several days after I kept checking our account to see when they would apply the four dollar fine I knew we owed on the movie.  When it never appeared I knew Tori must have had a hand in it.

A few months before that Susie took pity on me when I was trying to pay my library fines which, at twelve dollars, were alarmingly high to her.  Again she leaned in close to me and said very softly "Don't tell nobody, but I'm gonna take half that off for ya."
"Ok, I won't tell nobody," I whispered.  "Thank you."

So consider yourself not told, because I don't want to betray The Goddess of the Library's trust.  Bad things might happen, and we can't live without the library.

Finding the Stage

{They are walking along the side of Lee Chapel where Robert E. Lee is buried at W&L}

These two went to school yesterday . . . kind of.  We have a woman here in this small town who has transformed a few things. Her name is Susan Hogan. She owns an art studio and offers art lessons.  She owns a small cafe called the Blue Dog Art Cafe where she displays local art.  She runs a theatre program in the elementary and middle schools.  And she runs a very affordable three week summer camp called Kids University.

The kids put on a play and they do all kinds of art projects.  Yesterday Jonah and Caroline shuffled in to the auditorium a bit apprehensive about this new school-esque experience.  But in the 60 second process of checking in they saw half a dozen kids they recognized from church and one of them motioned for Jonah and Caroline to come sit by him.  Off they went.   Off I went.

Weird.

By the end of the day when I picked them up in the POURING rain they were giddy.  "We're doing a play, Mom.  It's Winnie the Pooh.  I'm making a collage.  We get to design flower beds at Penny Park.  I think I might try out.  I want to be a Bumble Bee.  I made a new friend."

Today when I picked them up Jonah announced that he has been cast as Christopher Robin.  And Caroline will be a Bumble Bee.  We have already been to two of the plays that Ms. Hogan has produced.  The kids have loved them, but shied terribly at the thought of being on stage.  It is their turn now.  As a homeschooling mother I am thrilled for them to have this experience independent of me.

Independent.

It's like rubies.  Precious.

HEART AND SOUL

Dear Mr. Nelson,

All my mothers are white - the Anglo-Saxon Eve of European emigration crossing the Atlantic for as many reasons as there were crossings.  I have borne white children, but I have borne them American, and therein lies a kaleidoscopic identity louder than white.  

I am a harassed, homeschooling mother in a small library in Lexington, Virginia, carrying a baby, watching a toddler, trusting two older children to keep themselves alive among the shelves.  There is a book on display - Heart and Soul - with a woman on the cover so dark, so fierce, so determined I cannot pass her up.  I slip her and her little black baby into my bag not knowing what she will pull from us, what she will give to us over the next month.

We have read so many books.  We have learned so many important things from so many authors, but you are the first to whom we all knew we must write and say "thank you."

I grew up in the Southwest and Mountain west United States.  The history of African Americans has always felt like a story removed from me - separated by a continent, an ocean, another continent.  Having recently moved to Virginia we are feeling the tide of African American history come in around us.  Here we are immersed in the ongoing story.  Here we become part of the narrative, and you are among our first guides.

While the geographical parallels of our new home and the tortured slaves in your book settled upon my son, he cried and pleaded with me to go home, back to Utah, away from a place where these things could happen.  I can tell him there are nearly two hundred years between us and this story.  I can tell him the pages that follow offer some resolution.  But I cannot tell him that some divine panacea distilled upon the American heart making true brothers of us all.  Every heart is converted and committed to a prismatic humanity in their own single moment.  

This child, my child, this nine-year-old, white Jonah is in the midst of that moment.  He can now shed some of his own skin and try on something more human, more universal, because you taught him a little about how to respect a human being, be they any color at all.  You taught my six-year-old Caroline that no soul should be standing under the whipping tree.  And honey, you taught me that I can be brave.

Thank you for this story.  Thank you for the paintings you gave us to go with your words.  Thank you for all the things we will now see, the places we will go, the things we will read and learn because we first read Heart and Soul.

          

Your Sister,

Jessica

A Rose By Any Other Name

We have a lot of nicknames in our house.  Matt christens us all, routinely, with something new to answer to.

A few examples:

Jessica, Jae, JaeReg, Reg, Reggie, Jethro, Jethrodesia

Caroline, Carlo, Carlotta, Carlotta Kumquata, Kumquat

Jonah, Yonut, Fro-nut, Yonus Fro, Donkey Nut, Donut, Bon-oh-me-oh, Bon-oh-mc-me-oh

Cecily . . . she says hers is Cecil

Ewan, Bald-e-wan,  Brick Density

Obviously the nick names are not necessarily an effort to shorten a name, or even associated with the given name in any way.  Matthew's mind works in mysterious ways.

Another obvious is that Cecily is strangely lacking any nicknames.  None have ever stuck to her.  Which is odd considering that 'Bon-oh-me-oh' sounds just like 'Jonah' to my ears.  Where is the connection?  Nowhere.  It is Matt's gift of persistence that stitches a name to a person.  But like Peter Pan's elusive shadow, no nicknames have settled on Cecily long enough to start sewing.

Jonah and Caroline are, evidently, adopting their Dad's practice.  Yesterday Caroline declared "Jonah, I'm going to call you Phoebe."  To which Jonah responded, "I'm going to call you Carton-of-Jurassic-Buttermilk."

We'll see if those stick.

That would be Phoebe on the left, JaeReg in the middle, and Carton-of-Jurassic-Buttermilk on the right.

Homeschooling Requires Jelly Beans

WHY ? why? Why?

Why do we homeschool?

This is the question a psychologist asked me two years ago with great incredulity when I went to her for help during my dark days of postpartum depression. It's a fair question, especially for someone feeling overspent, overworked, underslept, and overangry.

The answer to this question eluded me then as it does now. I have read books about why other people choose to homeschool and I relate with some of their reasons. I get catalogs from the great amorphous right-wing, conservative Christian homeschooler guild that is sure I am homeschooling so that the infidels in the schools won't whisper the name of "Darwin" to my little darlings, lest they be convinced there is no God.

I don't order from those catalogs .

And Darwin is not why we homeschool. Unless that is to say there would not be opportunity in public school to answer or explore all the questions my children have about who he was and what he did . We do have opportunity to indulge curiosity in a way that cannot be done by a teacher in a classroom. I have a finite number of curious minds to indulge. The logistical impossibilities are stacked high against teachers from the outset. I can't blame them for the parameters that restrict their abilities.

I am Christian and I admit this does play a part in my WHY. We don't watch television in our house. It is bad for us. This is a personal choice that has made us a happier family. We do not have any video/computer games in our home. Again, this has helped us turn to other forms of entertainment and engagement - namely each other. These choices stem from our Christianity, our own interpretation of how we, as a family, can prepare to know Christ. I do think that the influence of media and gaming found swirling around in the brew of popular culture in the public school is at odds with our choices as parents.

This, of course, may be considered being overprotective.

tomato - tomahto

I think I mostly find my Why in being privy to my children's moments of discovery. If I sent them elsewhere for their education I would not see the first stitches of recognition as they sew a new concept to their own young collection of ideas.

I am rewarded constantly by the time I give to my children in the name of education.

Jonah does a timed math sheet every day - one minute to complete 25 addition facts. The point is not necessarily finish all 25, but to continue to improve and get as many right as possible, an effort at proficiency. Jonah only sees the 25 that need to be completed and we have gone through many days of tears for the blank addition facts glaring at him at the end of one very short minute.

The crying.

Ughh, the crying.

One day I said to him, "Jonah, you don't need to be so devastated if you don't finish every addition fact."

Without hesitation he responded "Just give me some jelly beans if I feel devastated."

Caroline and I did a reading lesson yesterday; number 64 of 100 - the 100 that are in the lesson book. There will be a thousand more lessons over the next few years as we read together regularly. She has a story to read each day and they are getting longer. Yesterday's story was a full page and at the outset she slumps her body into the refusal posture that tells me we will be at it for a long time and each word will require frustrating coercion on my part. The battle ensued. But it was a funny story, as most of them are, about a boy who tries to send his mother a card but a cop gets it instead, and it inspired her to make two beautiful cards for me that said "Mom" with hearts and flowers.

Jonah and I read Shakespeare. Not the intense, full language Shakespeare that will come several years from now. And not the Henry V Shakespeare that is best left until one has developed a true appreciation for the slightly more approachable plays. We have read children's versions of the plays that make us laugh.

It did not occur to me the other day as we read Romeo and Juliet that the end of this story was very different from As You Like It or A Midsummer Night's Dream.

While Romeo was kissing the lifeless lips that would soon warm giving Juliet her turn to find the death of love lying poisoned beside her, Jonah was already crying. When Juliet turned the dagger on herself Jonah's crying became full sobs that wracked his little body. I couldn't finish. He had his head in his hands, full of tears, while he asked over and over "Why would he write this, why would he write this?"

When Jonah calmed enough to talk I finished the last few paragraphs where the Montagues and Capulets vow to resolve their differences for the sake of the lost youths.

I told Jonah, "It's not a true story."

"I know," he said, "it's just so sad."

"Why do you think Shakespeare wrote a story like that?" I asked him.

"To torture someone."

"Do you learn anything from it?"

"It teaches you one thing," Jonah acquiesced, "never quarrel, because bad things might happen and it all turns out horrible in the end."

Had I any jelly beans that day, I would have offered them as balm to his devastation.

Strangely, my biggest regret with this experience was that Jonah will never discover Romeo and Juliet for the first time again. The tragedy is known to him no matter how many times he reads it or sees it on stage. But at the same time I am so glad that I was with him to talk through his visceral response to a very unhappy ending. That is the gift of homeschooling.

A week may turn out very different form my vision on Sunday night of our next round of lessons. This week there has been letter writing to Norway, philosophical discussion about the nature of curfews imposed by Henry Plantagenet in England, uncovering Herculaneum (the lesser known city destroyed by Vesuvius in 79 A.D.), a trip to Temple Square to participate in another homeschooler's geography project, watching the leaves sprout on our sweet potato immersed in water, and the creation of two very impressive versions of pages from The Book of Kells.

It's a good week.

The Dickens' Debate

Her 5th birthday started with all of us laying in my bed.

This is how pretty much every day starts at the moment.

After many years of grappling with A Tale of Two Cities, I was determined to finish the last thirty pages before I committed my mind and body to any of the heavy duties of the day - like feeding everyone breakfast.

Jonah asked me to read aloud. His request came in the most critical, emotional, purposeful pages of the book. I read with tears barely held at bay. I gave voice to Sydney Carton as the unlikely Christ figure. We rode with the tumbrils through Paris to meet Madame La Guillotine. We followed the clicking, knitting Defarge en route to an unexpected encounter with Miss Pross. We were jostled in the heart thumping carriage of the little party desperate to abandon la vie francaise. Jonah held on to every word - enraptured. Caroline said, "When can I open my presents?"

What!?

Presents?

Oh yeah. . . it's her birthday.

"Caroline," Jonah retorted with frustration, "we have to find out what happens."

"But I want to open my presents from Granny."

"Ugh," he replies, "if only you understood the glory of books."

"I know the glory of books," Caroline demands.

"No, I mean like, figuring out something new, and . . . the magical way the author tells the story."

"Well, I just want to open my presents."

And it is her birthday, so Dickens will have to wait another ten minutes to render the conclusion of his tale that has taken me nearly fifteen years to read.

We open presents.

We play.

We finally come to that famous sentence:

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."

How did he do it - Dickens that is - The first and last sentence of this book are arguably the most famous in English literature - except for maybe a few of Shakespeare's.

We eat pancakes per birthday request.

The culmination of our birthday celebration came in the evening when I used Caroline's new curling iron to put curls in her hair, dress in her fanciest dress, take a picture in the front garden, and dine at the Olive Garden - a very rare outing for our family.

Books are good. A Tale of Two Cities might be one of the best. But someday Jonah will also know the glory of children - his own - a little girl turning five. Even Dickens would have yielded to that glory.

"Mom Sorry"

I yelled at Caroline the other day - Caroline and Jonah. The kind of yell that is borne of my own exhaustion and unrelated frustrations, but comes out as though they have betrayed the very heart of me by . . . playing in the dirt.

The wrong dirt, at the wrong time. I usually don't mind my kids jumping into outside dirty. I had better let them do something, since everything with an electric cord, or batteries makes me get all impatient and irritated. But this was right by the newly planted tomatoes, and fit snugly in the twenty minutes after bath and before bed. So I am the backyard banshee, demanding obedience and some kind of retribution from a four and seven year old. I corral muddy little bodies into the house, pushing them with undo force.

Our back door opens into the house at the top of the stairs to the basement. We have trained ourselves to open gently and slow should there ever be a child at the top of those stairs. A child at the top of those stairs would be bumped right down to the bottom by a door flung open in anger. So when I flung open the door in anger it caught the moment that the baby was making her way through that little square of floor from stairs to kitchen. It also caught the side of her head. I waited for a split second envisioning her tiny body tumbling down too many stairs to the floor that had at least been recently carpeted, instead of the welcome block of hard tile that used to catch my kids when they fell down the stairs.

Instead she screamed and clung to the wall. Anger rushed out of me, replaced by a flood of shame. I left the muddy children, scooped up the crying baby, and locked myself in my bedroom to hide from my own parenting. Cecily and I cried together. Her head was fine. She wiped my tears saying "Mama crying?" Matt eventually came in to sit quietly with me, never chastising me for my ill behavior. Natural consequences worked well enough in this case.

After enough time had passed to make me feel almost ready to go apologize to the rest of my family there was a timid knock on my bedroom door. Caroline came in - no signs of mud and clad in pajamas - to offer her own silent apology.

She explained that she is the little girl in the picture and "The tears are me crying because I made a wrong choice."

I told her I made a wrong choice too, and I'm old, and it still made me cry.

As Long as She Talks, I Laugh

She is four - only a few more months - five is looming. She lost two teeth while I was in England. That's right she's four and she lost her two bottom, front teeth. But those two teeth came cutting through her three-month-old gums a site too early for our nursing routine. At twelve months my flesh could no longer handle her full set of teeth and we decided to go for the cow option. I suppose with teeth, it is early in, early out.

And with that premature gap in Carolin'es smile she carries on in her funny four year old way - charming me with what comes out of her head, out of her mouth.

A sampling:

"Mom, my clothes are too loosable."

_

"Wow, that bath was as quick as a camel eating."

"Oh yeah?" I ask. "Do camels eat fast?"

"Yes"

"And do you know what a camel is?"

"Ye-es" in total exasperation.

_

So, I am pregnant. This means a growing belly, and a growing need for clothes made to accommodate my immensity. Caroline hasn't quite figured out what the special word for those clothes are. Every time I put on one of my bigger than normal tops she asks, "Is that an eternity shirt."

"Yes, in so many ways," I tell her.

_

Last night we were talking about her preschool graduation that will happen next week. With zeal Caroline declared "I'm graduating from preschool, I'll be in kindergarten next year, and then I'll go to high school."

Yup, something like that.

_

The other day my friend was lamenting a few of her husband's, shall we say, little imperfections. Not really thinking about children's ears that hear more than we imagine, she asked in rhetorical exasperation "What am I going to do with him?" Caroline answered without missing a beat "Toss him overboard," in her best pirate accent.

_

Jonah and Caroline are sitting in the back of the van trying to remember the name of one of the boys in Caroline's preschool class who did something funny. Since Jonah spends the five minutes it takes to drop her off making the social rounds, he is friends with pretty much everybody in her class, so he knows all their names. The two of them are ticking off each boy they can think of, but still not coming up with whomever she is thinking of. Finally she pleads in frustration "Come on Jonah, just be in my head."

Impossible.

To be in her head.

A totally unnavigable place is Caroline's head.

Prescience...or Sophomoric Communion?

Caroline seems to be waxing all kinds of lyrical at bed time these days.

Last night she uttered this plea in Matthew's behalf,

"Dear Heavenly Father, please bless the Holy Spirit to save Dad from all those gross bugs."

What I want to know is, has she seen something in my house that I have not. We run into the occasional uninvited spider, I may have seen a Box Elder bug...or two, but what's up with "all those gross bugs?" Is Caroline having nocturnal encounters with insects that would give her cause to pray for Matt's welfare?

I didn't question her about the content of her prayer. I mostly just give silent thanks when she decides she is willing to pray.

But I considered sending a few more details heavenward, like; "maybe You could work out some kind of insect-impregnable forcefield around Matt while he sleeps tonight."

There is the terrible prospect that the "gross bugs" she's talking about are.....(it's hard for me to even type the word)...ear wigs!*@!

Oh no, please don't be earwigs. Such an invasion cannot be borne.

But Matt called me today and he seems well enough so either the insect-impregnable forcefield is working out alright, or Caroline is four, and says strange four-year-old things that harbor merit primarily in their humor.

A bit of "Not-Lonely" Please

We are a migratory clan, 400 long miles from the man who is "Dad" in our tribe.

It is bedtime - a torturous routine involving three children that always, every night, despite any efforts on anyone's part, end up asleep. I can't get them there fast enough. They would prop their eyelids open with toothpicks and ask for seventy-two "goodnight drinks" to avoid the inevitable slumber.

Jonah is letting slip a few I-miss-Dad tears as we go through our third round of hugs in the dark room. He decides a prayer will help. "Please bless Dad that he won't be lonely," Jo implores on Matthew's behalf.

One "amen" later Caroline refutes the prayer.

"Dad doesn't be lonely, Jonah. He be's with the Holy Ghost."

(The apostrophe in "be's" is poetic license based on my assumption that Caroline has created a contraction out of "be is". Thus - he be's...)

Well, I for one am feeling better about the state of my husband's potential loneliness. Lest I fear that a man alone at home misses his family, I need only remind myself that "he be's with the Holy Ghost."

And Jonah's tears are gone, so apparently the Holy Ghost be's with us too.

Does "Whole Foods" Mean Eating the Stem?

Cecily eats whole pears. She devours them from stem to stern, in great, greedy bites, leaving only the stickiness of her fingers as evidence of the edible encounter.
Who gave her that pear with a stem still attached? Who strapped her into her booster seat and slapped down uncut fruit on her tray? That pear might as well have a label fixed to the stem that says "My Mom can't be bothered with a knife," or "My Mom is too busy washing dishes," or "I am child number three."
We could call it lazy...but let's not. I do have my mental health to look after.

When Caroline was two our plum tree brought forth branches so heavy with fruit that a few of those branches couldn't hold their own. In the dark of night they buckled under the weight of luscious, ripe plums. This became Caroline's sustenance for the week that followed. Several times a day she would make her way out the back door to gather the harvest. She would squat and suck the nectar from as many of those little purple orbs as she wanted. I couldn't say for sure that she never swallowed a pit, but I can vouch for her having never choked on a pit.

This is the way to feed children...whole foods, in the purest sense. Yes, it comes of being busy, or being tired from being busy. It comes with the addition of more hungry mouths, but mostly more hungry whines and words.

Food....food....food....the whole consuming affair picks at my consciousness like the vexing drip, drip, drip of the Chinese water torture. Filling our vacuous bellies seems so...stone age, like we could have moved past this tedium around the same time penicillin moved us past the tedium of dying from a cut.
My Mother maintains that the day of "the pill" will come.
No, not that "pill". That one is old news.
She means the one that really liberates women. The pill we set down on the table with a glass of water in front of each famished member of the family that has gathered for a bounteous meal, and tell them to "dig in." Rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub.

And I sometimes think I would buy that pill and dish it up guilt-free to my family three times a day...

Until I eat one of those pears that Cecily has been feasting on. Not the pear from the store, but the one off the tree in my back garden. I am a "God made the earth so it could bring forth perfect strawberries" kind of person. Although in late August we would just switch that strawberry bit out for "peaches." And then came the house with the pear tree. After five years of owning this house and this tree, I have finally figured out when to pick them. There is a thirty minute window between the time a single fruit reaches its full size and then begins to ripen. It is a different thirty minute window for every pear. This is too complicated for me, so I guesstimate and pick the tree clean in two harvests about a week apart. I empty my refrigerator of insipid things like milk or bread and fill it full of not-quite-ripe pears. These I remove four or five at a time to sit on the counter and ripen to...perfection? I marvel that I could think such a thing of a fruit that has so long been just bland, gritty flesh to me. But I tell you, every last fruit off this tree is perfection. It's like a new species. It is an ambrosia tree in my back garden.

I know food is heavenly beyond many things in this life. My pears keep me anchored to this reality. So I blame the absence of a dishwasher in my kitchen as the source of my food rancor. Well, no dishwasher and three kids. Ok, no dishwasher, three kids, and no one to cook or clean for me.
Oh no! That really is called lazy.
I need a new food paradigm. One that doesn't torture me.
It starts with feeling good about "whole foods" as distributed a la me. Giving a kid an apple doesn't dirty a dish, and it's good for my psyche.

Cecily may have swallowed a few pear seeds in her time (all fifteen months of it), but she is none the worse for wear. So far no pear trees are sprouting out her ears.

I'll keep cooking dinner (most of the time). But I am working on my gardening skills, and someday I will do as my husband's grandmother and announce to the family that "dinner is in the garden."

Curiosity With a Voice

Caroline comes to the garden with me, a great festering mess of rotten tomatoes hanging from rotten vines that need throwing out before snow renders them immovable until spring. We work at unwinding the gratuitous lengths of wire I laced around my six-foot tomato cages and the rebar stake meant to anchor each cage to the center of the earth. She is surprisingly adept at this, her little fingers making quick work of the tangle that my bumbling, gloved fingers struggle with. Behind me she hums and talks aimlessly to herself until she realizes she's pretty good at what Mom is having a hard time with.

"Mom, did you ever know that you would have a four-year-old who is not so big, who is a helper and works hard like me?"

"No, I didn't know I would have a four-year-old like that."

She returns to her quiet work for a moment, then declares "I'm a Jesus girl."

__

We are in the van driving to meet Granny and Auntie Maren at the park for a fall picnic. Jonah and Caroline are in the back seat coexisting, for this brief moment, in peace. Caroline threatens the peace with an innocent question.
"Jonah, I think we're near the park. Do you want to take your jacket off before we get there?"
"Why?" he asks.
"So the people at the park won't see what you look like," she says with an implied 'of course'.
She asks this as if he wasn't wearing an ultra cool, height-of-kid-couture, GAP hoodie with an outline of Mt. Everest embroidered on the back. And he is wearing that hoodie!
"Like what?!" he demands to know.
"Well, your jacket has that funny thing on the hood that sticks out."
Silence.
He's mulling it over. Weighing the consequences of a six-year-old fashion faux pas at the park.
"No," he replies, completely unoffended. "I'll keep it on."
And we carry on, pax romana intact.

__

Caroline stands on the fourth stair. I don't know if this is fourth from the top or from the bottom, but I do know that the fourth stair is, for Jonah and Caroline, the pinnacle of stair-jumping bravado. It is Greg Louganis on the high dive, only we hope Caroline's jump has a more auspicious outcome than Greg's famous "whack."
Matt is Caroline's only audience. She readies herself while he watches intently, poised with saving arms should the fourth stair prove beyond her means. Caroline closes her eyes, puts a steady hand to her heart and pleads "Jesus, help my heart."
This must be the dramatic indicator that she is about to leap.
But no!
She has a thought, a question for which she requires an answer before her feet leave the fourth stair. Caroline opens her eyes and asks, "Dad, would it be bad to say 'Jesus, bless my little broken body'?"
I'm guessing Jesus has been asked to bless significantly less holy things than Caroline's little broken body.
But wait!
Such a question is more than alarming to the father waiting for the jump.
He might think to stop her at this point, the vision of her question being too much for his natural propensity to caution.
But Caroline is ready, her curiosity satiated, mind turned back to the inhuman feat ahead of her.
Before Matt can voice concern...
she bends her knees just a bit...
and flies...

Put "Triage" on my Tool Belt

I could cradle her, but it's a gamble.

I could lay down next to her on her bed where she has been spending the last lone hour and ask "Did you do any laughing at pre-school today?" But she would likely say "No!" - with an implied post script of "get out of here and leave me alone" attached.

I might ask if she wants to read a book with me, help me put away toys, go for a walk.
*Snarl*Grimace*Snap

Caroline has a cup full of vitriol that she regularly splashes in my face. That cup runneth over and never seems to empty. I may think she has used it all up or slept it away, but she has hidden reserves.

Even now I bid her "Good morning" as she comes sleepily into the room, my arms out to pull her up on my lap.
Head down, she gives me a kind of "back off" grunt-whine and drop kicks her stuffed snowman at me.
Ahhh, a bright new day has dawned.

How do I make friends with a four-year-old-girl who just doesn't seem to like much of anything? Matt says she smiles for him. He says she is delightful and fun. Does he have a secret code word that liberates her inner angel? I am the Mom - I should have all the code words.

Here are the two abilities that comprise my mother-skills as developed with my first child:
Reading
Talking

That's it.

Jonah has never been too bothered that I have no imagination to make up games or stories, or magic spells to jolly him out of a scraped knee. If I should rest awhile from the banal duties of the house to spend time with a child, I will read to them. This I do with a complete lack of interest in or ability to make up games. Many thousands of people before me have published their magic words and pictures to be read to this very child of mine on this very couch with no effort at all from me. I spent all my effort long ago pushing the kid out of my body. Thereafter I take the easy road.

And talking. I can ask a hundred questions. I can respond to questions. This is actually a true skill. Matthew has helped me develop this over time. Matthew is better at it. But never mind.

So, there you go - reading and talking - my mothering prowess in all its grandeur.

Caroline laughs in the face of my mothering prowess. Well...really she whines, or growls, or screams in the face of my mothering prowess. Laughing would be altogether too jovial for her.

In light of this I am putting a new arrow in my quiver. I call it "Triage".

We have a dear old friend called Chuck. Once, Chuck came to our house delivering a box of food stuffs I had purchased through him. Considering Chuck is around 80 and recently had knee surgery I would normally have carried the box into the house myself. But I happened to be about nine months pregnant at the time and therefore helpless even in the eyes of the one-kneed-eighty-year-old. While coming in Chuck inevitably tripped and fell up three steps into our kitchen. He came away with a bloody shin, but alright overall.

Caroline was almost three at the time. And I'm sure she almost felt sorry for Chuck. But what she mostly felt was total fascination. "Was he bleeding, Mommy? Did he cry, Mommy? Can he still walk, Mommy?" In the first day of the accident I must have recounted the story of Chuck Falling on the Three Stairs at least two dozen times. Books? We don't need no stinking books. Chuck Falling on the Three Stairs became our bedtime story, our morning time story, our I'm bored story, our stop-the-fit-throwing story. Caroline is four and a half now and we still get serious mileage out of this story.

A month or two later another dear old friend had an accident. My sweet 86-year-old Reva decided she was going to walk to church on her own because her ride did not show up. She (purposefully I'm sure) forgot her cane. She always says she doesn't need "that silly old thing." A block away from her house she fell flat on her face. A neighbor called an ambulance, and despite our worst fears Reva came away with only two black eyes and a few sore spots.

Caroline could not get enough of it. We added Reva Fell on the Sidewalk to our repertoire of stories.

We now have a rather august collection of Triage stories.

Mom Split Her Chin Open at the Pool
Aubrey Slices Her Leg Open in the Garage
How Dad Got a Harry Potter Scar
The Horse Stepped on Mom's Foot or The Horse Stepped on Aubrey's Leg
Mom Burns Her Hands Cutting Chili Peppers
Nana Breaks Her Arm Falling off the Porch
Tickle Grandpa Nearly Cuts His Arm Off While Fishing
Granny Breaks Her Wrist Delivering Christmas Cookies

So long as people we know continue to hurt themselves I have found a way to get Caroline in my lap and....connect. I'm not sure yet what this reveals about Caroline. She is not laughing at people's pain. It's more like she is absorbed in the horror of it. She doesn't like her own blood, and she DOES NOT like stories about her own wounds. I suspect there is a little bit of entertainment in it. I can tell a pretty good story if it is true, I just can't make one up as I go. But I also suspect that knowing each of these stories ends with survival is a wee bit comforting for Caroline. She gets hurt A LOT. Knowing other people get hurt - with blood even- and move on to enjoy chocolate ice cream again is promising.

So, "Triage" because it's kind of like nurses getting together to have a "cold one" after work and swapping emergency room stories. And "Triage" because it is my own emergency room effort to create a relationship with Caroline.

Now the label on my mother-skills arsenal declares:
Reading
Talking
Triage

Who knows what Cecily might put in my box.