kiwords

Smackdown with small voices

I was on my way somewhere, boys in the back seats of the van, muttering under my breath at the car next to me when Raphael said,

"Mom? Why is it when you're driving, the other drivers are 'jerks', but when Dad's driving, they're all 'pal' or 'buddy'?"

Ahem. Because your dad is a more highly evolved person. Get used to it.

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Max came trotting inside, his face lit up with the excitement of the afternoon. They were flushing the water in the hydrants in the neighborhood, and the poor city workers were being dogged by a gaggle of thrilled children. Great gushing streams of water! Now THAT is entertainment.

"So one of the men had a cigarette in his mouth?" Max waved his hands to show the scene. "And when he opened the hydrant, a stream of water SPLASHED him in the face and it put his cigarette out and he said a bad word."

"That's too bad. He shouldn't be talking like that with all those kids around him."

"Oh, that's ok," he was already on his way out the door and called back over his shoulder, "we already learned it from you."

Kira's Wild Kingdom

Today Tre and Max had a couple of friends come over to play. Nate and Gabe are my favorites of their friends - such an amiable pair that Raphael, even being the YOUNGEST and having no friend over today, wasn't all that left out. The five of them rampaged around the house. It's the only day of the week when I sort of wish we lived in a sprawling farmhouse on a 15 acre lot. Dude. That's a lot of boys.

Whenever the kids have friends over I like to drop back, sort of melt into the background. I make cookies, I tidy, I flip through the newspaper. I become semi-invisible, which provides me with an excellent opportunity to observe. It's like having my own show on the Discovery Channel. I even narrate in my head, sotto-voiced. Now the older boys have decided to spy on the younger pair. They have enlisted the help of the youngest, in an effort to stave off an inevitable tattling. What the older boys don't know is that the younger pair has been spying on them for at least twenty minutes. The younger pair is likewise unaware of the older's pair's plans. It would seem that neither set of boys is particularly adept at spying.

I have such a rich inner life, don't I? Aren't you envious of the late night ramblings that my husband gets to listen to as he tries to go to sleep?

Nonetheless, despite my keen powers of observation, there are always unanswered questions.

How did the window well cover collapse, despite deeply sincere assertions that no one touched it - or so much as thought destructive thoughts at it?

Why is Max talking like his uvula has been superglued to his tongue? Why is this so amusing?

Why is Raphael wandering through the house, with a walky-talky pressed to his lips, mournfully informing someone, "the ancient peep is dead"?

Clay arrived home, bearing pizza, and the entire herd thundered in, ate an astonishing amount of pizza (followed by cookies), and thundered back outside. They would have stayed out there for the rest of the evening, but I made them come in when the rainstorm rolled in, with lightening, thankyouverymuch. They all yearned to be out there, in the cold, feeling the rain and hail and wind, and they stood in the garage, inching their toes out into the wet. I sat down with my laptop and watched out of the corner of my eye.

Such a wild world it is.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom.

Last night I baked an angel food cake. My dad and Clay had planned a fete for Mom and me, but it was, after all, my mom's Mother's Day too, so I made the cake. It never ceases to amaze me, how mundane ingredients come together to become something as ethereal as angel food cake. As I separated the eggs, I dropped the yolks in a glass bowl. They formed bright pattens, like the rapidly dividing cells of new life, and I was mesmerized. I worked slowly, deliberately, and noticed the slip of the egg whites on my fingers, the grains of sugar beneath my wrist on the counter. The oven ticked quietly as it preheated.

Mom and I spent much of my childhood locked in combat. I believe the issue could be summed up thus: She was not me, and I was not going to be her. It seemed to take us some time to come to terms with those facts, and the negotiating process could be harsh at times. I, in particular, could be a real little...pain in the neck. Once, when I was about 13, I remember telling her emphatically that if she and Dad divorced, I was going to live with him. Not that they were threatening divorce, you understand. It was just a sort of pre-emptive rejection. Er...sorry, Mom.

I whipped the egg whites, watching them bloom from a slippery bubbly puddle, to loose foam, then up and up and up into stiff, glossy peaks. As the mixer whined, I held a bowl of sugar over the whites and tipped it, letting it spill in a wisp of a trail. Then I poured in a tiny bowlful of vanilla, lemon juice, and almond extract, and watched it melt into the bright white cloud.

After all the angst of my teen years, an amazing thing happened. I left home, and an uneasy cease fire was called. And then one day I found myself married and pregnant and terrified, and the person I needed to talk to more than anyone in the world was my mom. Just like that, everything that once stood between us melted away and she-who-didn't-understand became she-who-knows. By the time Tre was two, Mom and Dad moved to Denver, and I was thrilled. Mom had become my best friend.

I took a mixture of cake flour and sugar and sifted it over the whites, quarter cup by quarter cup. After each addition I folded it in with a spatula. Careful, quick movements, and with each turn I heard the batter sigh, the sound of air escaping. It's a balancing act between mixing it thoroughly and keeping billions of tiny bubbles intact.

Don't think I don't know how lucky I am. I look at friends whose moms are gone, friends whose moms are endless sources of pain and frustration. Friends whose moms are both. I know I am the recipient of a huge and undeserved blessing. I know.

What I hadn't thought about until last night, as I stood there with sticky foam drying on the side of my hand, turning the spatula in the sighing batter, was that I could have lost all of this, just this year.

Mom and Dad joined the Catholic church a year ago. This makes them not only Catholic, but Catholic converts. Oy. I, on the other hand, am not Catholic - and married to a former Catholic. If there is an anti-covert, it is the former Catholic.

It's not that I have anything against the Catholic church - not at all. If anything, before their conversion, I was more skippy with the Pope than Mom and Dad were. If a protestant can, indeed, claim to be skippy with the Pope. But it's awkward, the changing of beliefs. When someone who has always stood next to you takes a huge stride away, it's hard not to look at the ground under your feet and feel judged.

I've had friends convert to other churches and had the friendships not survive. I used to have a gang of moms that I hung with. Moms know how important this is. But then all of them converted to the Orthodox church. Some I still see. One is still very much in my life (thank God, I say with complete sincerity). But when the language of someone's life changes like that, it makes conversation difficult. And so much that was once a part of my life is now just gone. I miss it.

Would you believe that at one time my parents, all the women in my mom's gang, and I went to the same church?  Some Sundays I stand in church and I close my eyes and I can imagine them all standing around me. Some hymns we sing sound hollow, because in my head I can hear my mom's silvery strong soprano, arching above the rest of us, giving the melody structure and grace with her descant. Sometimes I try to sing her part, because I can hear it so clearly, but my voice is thin and breathy and was not designed to soar like that. It cracks, and I find myself with tears in my eyes. Again.

As my parents made their way into this new faith, Mom and I talked. As with everything, we discussed it up one side and down the other - cautious at times, laughing at times. There were moments of tension - anger even, but for the most part we just talked it through.

And now here we are. Now this is just how it is. This is our church, that is their church. We'll worship together again someday in heaven. It's ok.

I still have my mom. It's better than ok.

I scooped the batter into the cake pan, and smoothed the top. I could tell by the height of it, by the glossy surface, that it was going to bake up perfectly - airy and sweet and velvety.

Angel food cake is ethereal. All it takes is a careful hand and a miracle or two.

I think he's vying for the title of "most stereotypical boy." I NEED to find that old copy of Free To Be You and Me and girl him up a bit.

Raphael, he's a tough little man. He crashes his bike and leaps up to do it all over again. Today he was playing baseball (OF COURSE) at the park with his dad and a passel o' kids, and he took a ball to the upper lip. That left him with the most stunning blood blister inside his lip, which he loves to pull back and show me so I can lean against the wall and frantically wish away the tingly-weak feeling in my knees. Splinters in his hands? He'll gnaw them out with his own germy teeth, left to his own devices. He is rough and tough and not a little bit gross.

So why is it, exactly, that drying him off after a bath with a fluffy, clean towel and applying lotion is an exquisitely painful experience, earning me the title of MEAN MOM?

Good idea/Bad idea: summer edition

Bad idea: We signed Max and Raphael up for baseball.

Good idea: Tre (my favorite) has decided to sit this season out, opting instead to participate in a 25 mile bike ride in June.

Bad idea: That bike ride will require training.

Good idea: Which he will do with his dad.

Bad idea: Raphael has moved up out of the relative safety of T-ball, into the dangerous waters of "coach-pitch." He and Clay both think this is a fine idea, and are unmoved by my arguments of "But he's my BAY-BEEE!" and "But he could get HURT!" and "But someone will be throwing things at my BAY-BEE!"

Good idea: Raphael is completely enthralled with his cup, and wore it most of the day on Saturday. It protected his young squishy boyness during a particularly brutal game of Wii baseball, and also kept him safe during multiple thunks with his own delighted knuckles.

Bad idea: Max is moving out of the relative safety of "coach pitch" into the brutal waters of "player pitch." This is an archaic form of torture wherein youngsters learn how to pitch by spending interminable hours flinging wild balls in the general direction of home plate whilst their adoring parents watch and quietly die a thousand deaths. Games last one million years or until everyone is dead, whichever comes last.

Good idea: Max has GLASSES and can SEE and might...um...be able to pitch?

Bad idea: First practice isn't for two weeks, and I'm so emotionally scarred from last year that I'm already hoping for rain.

Good idea: Max and Raphael are alight with baseball joy. Max keeps plotting pitching strategies. Raphi totes his glove everywhere, and is never more than two feet away from a ball. Tre is likewise obsessed with his bike. They are all so engaged and delighted that I find I can't quite begrudge the fact that my life is over for the time being.

Let the games begin.

Grubby Love

Tonight the boys played outside until late. The sun was down and it was getting chilly before I called them in.

I watched them out there, doing tricks on their scooters, bouncing basketballs, talking and laughing and hanging out with the neighborhood kids, and I knew they needed to come in and take showers. Disgusting, filthy creatures, every last one of 'em.

But instead of cutting their evening short and dragging them in out of the cold fun, Clay and I let them run. And they ran and leapt and hooted and crashed.

When they finally were dragged inside and shooed downstairs for toothbrushing, I couldn't help but grin at the badges they wore in honor of our wise choice.

Tre (who had been doing tricks on the scooter) said, "It was awesome. I would go as fast as I could, and jump, and then TIME STOOD STILL and then I crashed and it hurt. So cool."

Knees should not be this battered and dirty.

Nor should toes.

But three disgusting, filthy boys went to bed very happy tonight, and there's something right about that.

Happy Love Thursday!

A note for Tre

I told him to put on shoes before he rode his bike. "And not your Crocs, either." He turned and gave me a bitter glare.

"I KNOW, Mom. I'm not a BABY," he said, and thumped his way down the stairs, disdain echoing behind him. I watched him go, and I thought, oh, I know.

I know you're not a baby, because when you were, your legs were fat and dimpled and they churned with delight when your eyes found me. Now your legs are long and lean and those soft knees are armored with roughness. And they are forever in motion, moving away.

I know you're not a baby, because when you were I could always make it better, whatever "it" was at the moment. I knew by the pitch of your voice, by the tension in your face, by rhythm between you and me just what you needed to be calmed. And now I see it, I see the tension and hear your voice slide upward in anger and frustration, but all I know is that you need, you NEED to pull away from me and our rhythm seems to be a battle pitch instead of a song.

I know you're not a baby, because when you were I knew what your days would hold, and I looked forward to the milestones that looked like building blocks, sturdy and solid, that would only take you higher. Now you dive and leap and soar to new abilities, knowledge that you seem to suck out of thin air. You stand behind me when I fuss with the stupid computer, and you sigh and point to things and say with great patience, "Ok, try this for me. Go to the start menu..." I don't know everything you know anymore, much less where it will take you.

I know you're not a baby because when you were my job was long and exhausting and endless and you fit inside my arms and made my life real. Now the job of being your mother is bewildering and endless and my arms are empty, but my hands are free, and my life is so real that it seems I must be a grown up.

I know you're not a baby because when you were I was barely older than a baby myself and now I've been through so much, weathered so many of my mistakes, and learned enough that I think I'm almost ready for you to be born. Almost. 

I know you're not a baby because when you were we fed each other peace. You relaxed best against my chest, and the weight of you settled my heart as nothing ever had. Now you walk into the room and within a breath we are grating on each other. I say the wrong things, you give me those looks. A good day goes quickly bad, and I don't know how to stop it.

I know you're not a baby because when you were I thought you were perfect. People describe it as "pride," the madness of a new mother, but I didn't see how I could be proud of you any more than I could have been proud of a dazzling sunrise. You were a wonder of God's creation, and I couldn't believe you were mine to love.

Now I know you're not perfect, any more than I am, but you dazzle me still. You will be taller than me by the end of the year, and I see almost as much of the good-natured, kind hearted man you will be as I do of the surly adolescent you've become. I cannot believe you are mine to love. I just want you to be ok. I want you to know how much I admire you. I want you to change your shoes before you ride your bike. As you shoulder your way out of my grasp, into the world, I want the world to accept you gently.

Believe me, son. I know.

Clay's inimitable parenting style

"Go to bed. Time to go," Clay intoned at Max. Max wandered in the general direction of his room, and Clay burst into song. "Good night, sweet heart, well it's time to go-oh," and lower voiced, "to-o your bed." Back to regular voice, "before you get punched i-in the nose," and down, "by-y your dad."

"Dad, you are awesome," Max called, on his way down the stairs. "When you sing, you are AWESOME."

"Really?"

"Yup, because you make up all these words, and I never know what you're going to say. Awesome."

"Thanks, buddy. Go to bed. Seriously."

Love grows, despite me

A week ago my friend Amy asked me how my spring plants were doing in the garden.

"They're not," I said, shaking my head. "Three weeks ago I planted spinach and lettuce and sugar snap peas, and NOTHING."

She shook her head with me. So sad.

It's my fear, every year. I drop those seeds into the dirt, water, and watch. Can it happen? Just like that? And until they sprout, I battle a mounting certainty that this JUST WILL NOT WORK. How could it? Surely the birds have eaten the seeds, which were clearly old, bad seeds anyhow, and that one day when it got pretty hot and the ground dried up killed what feeble life there was in them. Yes, somehow it is my fault, and I have crushed the beauty that is the life cycle of spinach. So sad.

But then - did you know this was coming? - then something happened. I wandered out to the garden, to slice down a few more asparagus stalks. I glanced at my barren Spring patch, and my vision was snagged by a tiny spot of green.

Real green. New, fresh, just-sprouted green.

These are lettuce.

This is out of focus spinach. Actually, the picture is out of focus. The spinach is lovely.

This is flat-leaf parsley, which I didn't so much "plant" as "allow to happen." There were seed heads, see. And I LET THEM GO. Rrrowl. I love flat leaf parsley. I love the way it sprawls all over the landscape, wedging itself in inhospitable places, and thrives. I love to rip off a fistful of leaves and eat them, staining my tongue neon green. Clay says that's actually not sexy, but I'm pretty sure he's wrong.

And now I am as happy as can be. Suddenly it's Spring, really and truly. Last evening kids played basketball on blacktop still warm from the sun, and I sat by the window, feeling the breeze pushing in against me. Outside there were at least six basketballs in play, and the sound of them striking the blacktop reminded me of the sound of popcorn popping in a pan, just as the tempo picks up. In the garden, new plants are growing, and I am entirely blissed out on it all.

New life. It's entirely outside my control, and I am so, so grateful for that.

Happy Love Thursday! Go plant something.

Poop talking boys

Raphael's best friend is William (aka Buddy Boy). The two of them have known each other their WHOLE LIVES, Raphael explains with characteristic intensity. To be precise, they have actually known each other for Raphael's whole life, which started when William was a little over a year old. Still.

The other day William was over to play.They were eying the Wii, but I heartlessly kicked them out so I could mop the floor. They bounced out to the back yard, amiable souls that they are, and climbed the fence. A few minutes later I sent Tre out to inform them that throwing things in the neighbor's yard was not on the list of approved activities for the afternoon, m'kthankx.

A few minutes later, Tre came back inside, shaking with laughter.

"Do you know what they're talking about out there? POOP."

"Do you mean they're being rude and gross?"

"No! They're just discussing poop. Like, William said, 'If you poop once a day, you're a daily pooper.' And then Raphael said, 'Well, I went almost a week without pooping, but I broke my streak this morning.'"

As I stood there, laughing with my son, spring sunshine streaming in through the window, several thoughts occurred to me.

Raphael clearly needs to eat more fiber.

It's good, that they can share so openly about the important things in their lives.

Raphael should probably be told that when describing pooping, "streak" is an unfortunate word choice.

How weird is it that I'm sharing a indulgent chuckle with my firstborn, the original poop talker in this house?

And most of all,

What a life this is.