Surreal

As an analogue to my last post on reality, today life was surreal: First, we lost Will in the Bolder Boulder, a 10k race with about 55,000 runners. Second, we found him.

This day is one of my favorites of the whole year. Our house is right in the middle of the 10k route. I love to wake up to the helicopters, and then the honking horns of the cars that lead the first runners, and then the cheering and music and craziness of the participants and the watchers. The energy could light up NYC for days. At the first sounds, we run out of the house, around the corner, and catch the fast starters. Then we race back home to pack up and make a day of it.

In one form or another, we've run it for about 10 years. This year it was Jeff's turn with Will and Clara. In the first few blocks, they planned to meet at a corner, but it never happened. So Will just kept going, the whole 6+ miles. I wonder what was going through his 7-year-old head during the hour he ran on his own. He says he just assumed his dad was close behind. Luckily, he ran into some friends right before the finishing lap around the packed stadium. We got a call, and all ended well, despite some unease in the middle.

Finally, the day ended with a much smaller scale surreal scene. June went spring shopping with me at the hardware store and fell asleep in the cart, wearing a beautiful red velvet dress and tights. It wrapped our day up nicely.

Reality

My summer has begun with 3 days of only 3 children. Jeff and Clara are on a trip. I had some projects planned, and aimed to set some summer routines, but I can tell already that I need a reality check. For example:

Goal: Make a fountain in the backyard, a la Sunset Magazine, to surprise Jeff and Clara.

Reality: Spend the day lounging on the creek.

Goal: Inspire kids to ride bikes as much as we can.

Reality: They now refuse to drive. You can't get much at the Hardware Store with one kid on a bike and two in a burley. But we did it, and then biked home in rain, a thunderstorm, and hail. Will crashed about half-way home.

Goal: Spend lots of time at home.

Reality: Will asks me to play tennis with him every 3 minutes in the makeshift backyard "court." It's fun, but I have other kids. And a house. And a yard. And a stomach.

I anticipate learning a lot this summer and hope to appreciate having days that meander.

Endings and Beginnings

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\: John made that with his sleeping feet.

I can always count on two days of the year to be emotional for me, not counting birthdays and holidays: the first day of school and the last. Our day began with Clara shooing me away at school with a very punctuated "Bye Mom!" Wow - and at the beginning of the year, I thought I'd be homeschooling!

But no wonder the last day is so emotional - it's total chaos! I raced 2 kids to school, then gathered a picnic, then took June to preschool, then got John to sleep, then packed for Clara's trip (another story), then organized teacher gifts, then back to preschool, back to Will and Clara's school, make it two "celebrations" in 20 minutes, ooh and aaah sincerely at all their work, and finally sit in gravel for a picnic intended to joyously wrap up the year. All this before noon.

I do remind myself that this day isn't about me. And I also realize that everyone I see is having the same day. My role today for my kids is just to be stable and organized (a challenge on any normal day), since my kids are in all likelihood on the verge of freaking out, each in their own way.

But, we made it, happily really, and no freakouts, for the small price of no adult conversation and no pictures. But I do have a few pictures of some teacher gift art, and time outdoors, two things that ground us as we transition into Summer. I don't think it will take long.

Will wrote poems in scrapbook pages for his teachers.

These are flower arrangements for Clara's teachers with art from each of her classmates.

Can you see the hang-glider?

I think this looks like Summer.

Anticipating Summer

Here in our last week of school, we are ready for the summer!

Parallel Play

Today, Clara and I had our last pottery class. Lucky I have the excuse of three more kids to keep it up. I love having a busy Saturday morning at home, and then sneaking off in the Subaru, cup of coffee in hand, to my favorite part of town with just one child. It feels so intimate and easy, almost like I'm getting away with something.

The class was on the top floor of an old fire station on the Hill, just a few blocks from Chautauqua. After walking up the fire escape stairs to our seats at a long, rectangular table, our teacher, a youngish guy, tall with small glasses, would demonstrate in about 4 minutes what would take us the hour to complete.

The mood while we worked was open and relaxed, full of pleasure to have our hands in clay. Cool air breezed through the fire escape door to counter the heat of the nearby kiln. Generally, it stayed pretty quiet. Just easy chatting here and there with other parent/child pairs. Clara sat in my lap much of the time, which made for some tricky molding. As crazy as she can be, she's actually pretty silent one on one.

In truth, the class was like parallel play, or more specifically, parallel art. With the intensity that can arise in an active household, it's a good reminder. Maybe toddlers are onto something. There's nothing wrong with a little parallel play to strengthen our ties to each other.

The Seventies

Today, we time traveled to the 70s.

First, everyone is singing songs from "Free to be You and Me":

Will: "Round and Around in a Circle..."

Clara: (taunting) "A Doll, a Doll, Junie wants a Doll."

June: "It's Alright to Cry."

Me: "Mommy's are People."

Second, in what just seems like a 70s activity, Will is groovin' on felting. (A friend suggested this weekend that it sounds like some sort of shady teenage behavior.) He parades around the house all afternoon, poking a needle through wool into a foam box and shazam! He made a Greek monster dragon with two heads!

Third, the kids jumped on the trampoline tonight after a hailstorm, framed by a rainbow. It reminded me of one of those slow motion, psychadelic 70s jumping scenes.

But then there is more: Clara's Olivia Newton John headband style, Will's hairdo, June's clothes, June's insistence that we call her Sparkle, and my own partial nudity to feed my always hungry baby (maybe I'm reaching into the 60s).

Anyway, all day I felt transported, and it cracked me up. Maybe it's a virtue of getting older: the ability to time travel to many different decades, and then the chance to crack up.

Laden, the two-headed felt dragon:

Effects of Spring Hail:

And then this:

Grabbing the Moment

We are in the gardening zone. In Boulder, the window when dirt is workable, between the snow and the dry summer, is very brief. So we are digging and weeding and planting and moving rocks and even getting a new fence. The kids are involved, each in their own unique way:

• Will begged for jobs to earn $9 for books;
• Clara specialized in planting so she could sift fresh dirt with her bare hands;
• June in her fancy dress twirled her red weeder like a baton; and
• John moved rocks, inch by inch.

I have grand visions, as I do every Spring. Our yard is evidence, by all that is blooming AND all that is incomplete. Honestly, it's a challenge to garden with four kids. But, I tell myself that it's good for them. And good for me. And anyway, it's all connected:

• The rocks we move are solid baby Johns;
• The phlox and sunny marigolds we plant are "skippy-hoppy" Junes;
• The rich dirt we make by churning clay with compost is earthy Clara; and
• The bushes and vines that will soon be reaching in every direction are curious Wills.

I love gardening. And I love mothering, too.

Will's Vine

Clara's Dirt
June's Marigold

John's Rocks

My Mood is Like the Weather

Today, it is full blown wintertime in Boulder. The weather this time of year is hot then windy, then cold, then rainy, then snowy, and then cycle begins again. And today, I find that my mood is like the weather.

• Good Mood - I wake up next to happy John and sleepy June and cuddly Clara. (Jeff dragged in from a twin bed somewhere, maybe the pink top bunk in the girls room. He looked beat.)
• Bad Mood - June has huge temper tantrum getting dressed.
• Good Mood - I have coffee with chocolate milk, my new favorite thing.
• Bad Mood - I read about the oil spill in the paper. I cry over my coffee.
• Good Mood - John goes to sleep for a nap.
• Bad Mood - John wakes up a mere fifteen minutes later.
• Good Mood - We go to the bookstore, and I spontaneously buy three books.
• Bad Mood - I pick up Clara at noon and realize I forgot my volunteer walk to the library yesterday. I love that walk. And it was the last walk of the year. Of her entire life as a kindergartener. How could I forget? Second cry of the day.
• Good Mood - I make chili with vegetables that were so old, they would have been inedible the next day. OK, in about an hour. (I don't like wasting food.)
• Bad Mood - Clara and June fight, and fight and fight.
• Good Mood - Clara and June take a fighting break. John goes to sleep.
• Bad Mood - John wakes up fifteen minutes later. Clara and June continue fighting.
• Good Mood - Clara and June are best friends. Will is home and smiling.
• Bad Mood - While Clara and June play "Mamas & babies," June (the Mama) says, "Now it's time for Mama (June) to clean up all your toys." Is that what they think? It's Mama's job to clean up all the toys? Of course that's what they think! I've blown it.
• Good Mood - Jeff gets home before bedtime.
• Bad Mood - I have no idea where to send all the kids' thank you notes that they worked on today since I lost my address book, about 8 months ago!
• Good Mood - It's bedtime. Sleep time. The house is quiet, minus Jeff's working and my typing. It doesn't even matter what bed anyone is in - most are certainly not in their own. (John is in mine, Clara is in June's, with June, which means one of them will soon be in ours.)

Tomorrow, things are supposed to start warming up and clearing up, too. Like Jeff wrote to Clara this morning, after her huge tantrum the previous night, "It's a brand new day."

Last week:

Last weekend (and those are flowers on the tree, not snow):

Today (and that's snow on the trees, not flowers):

This minute:

Trip to Arkansas

For the past week, we've been in Arkansas, visiting Grandmama and Grandpa. The 11 hour trip door to door, alone with the four kids (obviously not alone at all), was well worth it. We had a wonderful week,

• Getting daily ice cream from the ice cream truck, Grandpa's treat, devouring it immediately, right before supper;
• Racing around the high school track in the evening, and jumping into the sand pit;
• Walking through the neighborhood under the canopy trees, listening to so many birds;
• Listening to rain and thunder, all too rare in Colorado;
• Visiting the nearby ducks;
• Reading with Grandparents;
• Will late night reading in his Grandparents' room;
• Making clover necklaces;
• Golfing with Grandpa;
• Playing hide and seek at the local nursery;
• Playing monopoly and Uno and Checkers and Chess and Chinese Checkers with Grandmama.

My childhood home has lots of padding. It's packed with photos, paintings, books, gnomes (seriously, about 100), so many momentos. When we visit, Grandmama also pulls out toys and books and dolls and linens and even clothes, all from my childhood. At the end of our stay, Will said, "Grandmama, your house feels old-fashioned." I'm not sure what that means to a 7-year old, but it's true. We live a pretty self-imposed old-fashioned life in Colorado, but here, it's the real deal.

When we got home to Boulder, to our like-minded friends and organic food and family routines, we took a walk in what felt like a desert compared to our lush walks in Fort Smith. And our house literally echoed - the hardwood floors, the long walls, the curtainless windows. Mind you, we've got more than enough stuff. But it's hard to imagine we'll ever build up that kind of padding here in Boulder. It's just not the way we live, nor is it characteristic of where we live. (Not to mention I married a minimalist.) But I do hope that my kids grow up with such a deep, layered feeling of home, like what we feel at Grandmama and Grandpa's house.