Little Things

Time, my old nemesis...

Max is really into Garfield these days. I mean really into Garfield: it's his favourite show on t.v.; he named his pet fish (and science-project beans) after Garfield and his trusty pal Odie; and pretty much every breakfast/dinner I have to wrestle a Garfield comic book out of his hot little hands to get him to focus on his meal. He's into Garfield the same way I was into Garfield circa 1982.

As in, 30 years ago.

I had to do that math three times. Not because I can't subtract 2012 from 1982; but because I simply can't believe that my son is into something that I was into THIRTY years ago. Or maybe it's just that I can't believe I am at the age where I can even SAY that I did something I still remember doing THIRTY years ago. Thirty years!!

I looked at my reflection in the kitchen window as I was doing up the dishes last night. I don't think I look like someone who was into Garfield 30 years ago. In fact, in the kitchen window, I think I look just about the same as I did when I was 20 - ok, maybe 25 - except for a few more prominent creases on my forehead. There might be creases in a few other places as well, but luckily the lights were quite dim in the kitchen, so all I could see were the creases on my forehead. I certainly feel the same inside as I did when I was 20 or 25. I'm the same in many ways, I think.

Age is a funny thing. My dear old Dad turned 70 last week. I keep telling everyone he just turned 60; then correct myself. How could Georgie Wall be seventy - almost a quarter of a century old? There must be a mistake. 

I don't want to be one of those people who spend their lives talking about how fast time flies. I don't want to be one of those Mothers who exclaims loudly, "Look how much you've grown!" to every kid I haven't seen in a few months. I don't want to be one of those people who opens every conversation with, "Where did the time goooooooooooo?"

But my God, where does the bloody time go?

I have an ongoing battle with time. There's never enough of it; unless it's 5:00 in morning and my turn to get up with Ben and Sam and each excrutiating minute goes so slowly I'm sure the clock must be broken. I'm always rushing rushing rushing to get to school on time, but we always seem to arrive on time; except for the mornings when we have so much time that we can do anything we want (so of course, we are inevitably late.)

Last night, before bed, I re-read one of my favourite pieces about Motherhood by Anna Quindlen. (Read it here.) It's a beautiful piece. In it she says that the biggest mistake she made as a Mother was not living in the moment enough. That she wishes she had cherished "the doing a little bit more and the getting it done a little less."

I can relate to this. I feel like some days we are just going through the motions; those motions add up to days which add up to weeks which add up to years and before we know it, we are celebrating our newborn baby's 8th birthday. How did this happen? Max was in my tummy 5 minutes ago. Maybe 5 months ago. Possibly 5 years ago. But certainly not 8 years ago! I haven't savoured 8 years worth of Maxwell James, not to mention the 5 of Sammy and the 2 and a half of Ben. How could I have let those precious  years, months, days go by without appreciating them more? I feel my heart contracting.

I want to savour them more in the here and now. Believe me, I do. I would love to live in a constant state of parental bliss and gratitude. It's just that, you know, that old life thing just keeps getting in the way again! It's hard to feel gratitude when you spend an hour lovingly cooking a dinner with all your son's favourite food in it and then he takes one bite, spits it out on the floor, and then yells, "Yuck!" Or you get awoken at dawn by your dreamy toddler who then proceeds to throw up into your hair. Or you feel like you are a hamster running on the wheel of life and when you finally step off that crazy wheel at the end of the day, you collapse, unconscious on your bed. No time for quiet contemplation there. What's a Mama to do?

Today, my friend Gayla posted a lovely piece by Glennon Melton called "Don't Carpe Diem" (read it here) on her Facebook page. Glennon writes about how the old "Carpe Diem" message we Mamas constantly get just doesn't work for her. She talks about two kinds of time - the time we live in (the "staring down the clock till bedtime time"), and the magical time  ("the time outside of time.") She believes that if she gets just a couple of minutes a day of the magical time, that's good enough for her. 

This makes me breathe. A couple of minutes of acknowledgment. Like when I sing the Cowboy song to Ben at night, with our faces really close together, and he smiles as he sings along, his sweet, high-pitched voice trying to form words he doesn't understand but knows by heart. And like when I walk to school with Sam, hand-in-hand, and he recites the show-and-tell order of the kids in his class like a song; and his bright eyes sparkle as he brainstorms what he is going to bring in tomorrow - tomorrow, the most beautiful word on his lips - because tomorrow he will be the class's special helper, his favourite job. And like when, at the end of the day, Max pulls me into his bed to lie with him just for five minutes, so we can talk a little bit more about the day, and I see a contentment in his being, and a confidence about him, where I catch a glimpse of the amazing adult he will be, even though he is still a boy right here, right now, lying next to me.

A few minutes of acknowledgment a day. I can get behind this kind of thinking. And not just because it helps to alleviate some of the guilt of not feeling gratitude every minute of every day, but because there is an underlying acceptance that washes over me when I think in these terms. An acceptance that seems to say, "You are enough, just like that; covered in puke or covered in kisses; exhausted and fed up, or energized and inspired; full of grumpiness, or full of love. It is all a part of your journey. It is all a part of being a Mama."

When I think about it this way, I can surrender to my battles with time. I can vow to try harder to live in the present and savour all the beautiful moments that come with being a Mama of three little boys; and I can also appreciate that it won't be like this forever...and some days, that's not such a bad thing.

And thirty years from now, when the creases in my forehead are even deeper, and Max and I will talk about the things he loved when he was 8 - The Canucks, Lego, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Calvin and Hobbs, and of course, Garfield - I'm sure I will smile and exclaim,

"Where did the time goooooooooooo??"

A few pics beause yes, I realize it's been a leeeeeetle while since I've updated my blog...(see "Where did the time go" comment above...)

Sam clutching his Valentine booty after school on V-day...Tangible love overflowing in his arms and heart...

My sweet, darling niece Lily turned 3...and Max and I were lucky enough to spend the morning with her (see my new invention: muffin-cupcakes...muffins packed with bananas and raspberries, with the usual iced decor on top. The kids never seem to eat the cake part anyway, so why not make it healthy? Mind you, it was breakfast...)  

He's the third child. We just take more pictures of him. How could we not?

A hopeful Mama and Max before a dreadful evening....maybe the Patriots didn't win the Superbowl this year, but you just wait....they'll win next year! In this photo you get a good view of the creases in my forehead...though Instagram helps to minimize the effects some. Gotta love that Instagram app!

Happy Thursday, y'all! As always, I will try to write in this space more in the days to come....wish me luck! If you'd like to add your thoughts about your own battles with time, I'd love to hear them...

 

 

 

Always moving...

About a month ago, at 1:00 in the afternoon, I looked at the clock, said, "Oh!", and put little Ben down to sleep in less than 2 minutes. A quick "Twinkle, twinkle"; a kiss; a "have a good nap" - and he was down. My friend Jocelin, who was visiting at the time, was amazed by my swiftness, my mothering finess, my je-ne-sais-quoi. I don't remember what I said, but probably something like, "Well, we just follow our routine; he's always been easy to put down."

Last night, for the tenth night in a row, I lay on the floor beside Ben's crib for half an hour, singing my whole repertoire of James Taylor, Puff the Magic Dragon, Cat Stevens- you name it - while Ben stared at me with wide-open eyes, a big, cheery smile across his very-awake little face. I took him downstairs to play for an hour, then back again to the floor and to the song, followed by some heavy breathing.

Lying there on the floor, pretending to be asleep (you know, to set a good example), I laughed. Isn't this just like parenting? The minute you think you've figured something out, or begun to establish a "reasonable" routine of some kind, the next day you wake up and everything has changed. Your child doesn't sleep. Or eat. Or play nicely with other children. And you are back to square one, trying to figure out what happened, trying to backtrack your steps to see where you went wrong - how you got from there to here in such a short time.

The truth is, I think the only thing I can safely say I've learned in the seven and a half years since I've been a parent is this: that every day - and every child- is different. That parenting isn't a straight and narrow path, but one that winds up and down and all around and sometimes even wanders off the beaten trail for a while. And until you've truly accepted this - until you've really felt it in the very core of your self - you will continue to beat yourself up for all of the things that you wish had gone differently in your parenting journey. For all the things that you swore would never do, but then find yourself doing one day. For all the times you thought you were that type of parent, or your child was that type of child, and then found out that - oh!- maybe you weren't, or they weren't, after all.

I have been both the Mama whose kids have eaten 14 different kinds on vegetables in one day; and the Mama who has fed her kids bunny pasta for lunch three days in a row. I have been the Mama who believed firmly in letting my kids "cry it out" so we could finally get some sleep; and the Mama who co-sleeps most nights with one (or two) of the little boys who somehow find their way into our bed. I have been the Mama in the grocery store who people smile at because my kids are so sweet or polite or adorable; and the Mama they shake their heads at, in digust or pity, because my kids are so wild or impolite or won't stop screaming.

The more this happens, the more I start to accept that parenting, like life itself, is just not black and white. It is not one way or another. It is not the same day in and day out, or from one family to the next. It ebbs and flows; always moving, always changing. Not unlike the very children we parent.

There is comfort in this movement. Knowing that each stage is finite helps us to keep pushing on; to remind ourselves that they are small for such a short time, really, and that all the struggles we have today will soon be distant memories. If we remember them at all.

And so, as I lie on the floor of Ben's room, night after night, singing him the Cowboy Song and watching him play the stand-up-lie-down-stand-up-again game, I will try to smile and ignore the fact that he isn't sleeping - and instead, savour his smallness and sweetness and the way his eyes crinkle up when he looks at me. This is what I want to remember.

 

 

Those days...

My sweet little redhead baby, who used to do nothing but coo and smile, and then smile and coo, has officially turned into a toddling screamer. And I don't mean the occasional yelp or screech when he's hungry or injured: we're talking a full-on, parrot-pitched, give-me-everything-you've-got scream, every 5-7 minutes (or more if there's actually something drastically wrong, like his brother took his bunny cracker, or he wants to get out of his highchair.)

Ah, parenting.

The other day I was at the grocery store at the end of a long, rainy day. I had Sam and Ben with me, and by the time I reached the check-out, Ben was doing his opera-like scream (Steph, you would've been impressed) at the top of his lungs. I'm not sure why. Hunger? Boredom? The snacks in his hands weren't exciting enough? Who knows. His dear brother was running up and down the area on the other side of the check-out, taking gift cards off the rack by the dozen, and offering snacks (that we hadn't yet paid for) to all of the other children who were also trying to get out of dodge.

It was one of those days.

The cashier winced as Ben let yet another scream fly. I smiled at her, and delivered what has become my standard response as of late:

"He's the third child", I said kindly, "He's already learned that if you don't get what you want in life, you just have to scream louder."

She looked me straight in the eye and said, "I never gave in to my daughter's screams."

I looked at Ben - one hand overflowing with crackers and an animal cookie, the other clutching a gigantic cheese stick from the bakery - and answered confidently, "Oh yeah, I don't either."

It was one of those days.

Though when I sit down to think about it, it seems that there have been a lot of "those days" lately. Days when my patience is tested, over and over again- and I flat-out fail the test. Days when I think my children actually have an "off button" in their brain when they hear my voice. Days when I think that I would truly be happy if my boys could get along with each other for just one day - just one! Days when I actually feel a rush of joy or pleasure or relief when I see another child having a full-on temper tantrum in public (the more outrageous, the better - which I think officially qualifies me as a bad person, by the way).

But there is comfort here. There is comfort in the conversations with other parents in the school yard, or waiting for swimming lesson to finish, or on the sidelines at the soccer game. There is comfort in the collective sighs we breathe, and the sympathetic looks we give each other. There is comfort in knowing that we all have parenting struggles of some kind, on some days. There is comfort in knowing we are not alone in this crazy, chaotic adventure we call parenting.

And I know no one ever said it would be easy. And I know there are more good moments than bad moments. And I know children are precious and the fruit of the earth and yada yada yada.

I love my kids. Don't get me wrong. I looooooooooooove my kids. And I love being a parent.

It's just that some days, being a parent is fucking hard.

What else can I say?

It's just one of those days.

(And you should read this post quickly because as Max reads - and frequently reads my email and my blog - I will need to delete this post soon. You know, so I don't have to explain what fuck is.)

Ah, parenting.

The screamer.

 

Today

This weekend was the first time since the summer where we didn't have a single thing on the calendar. Imagine! No hockey, no soccer, no baseball, no cheerleading, no birthday parties - nothing! Instead, we went to the zoo, we went for a hike by the sea, we made robots out of boxes, we organized the basement, we watched movies, we had lovely meals...and we didn't rush anywhere (or anyone). 

Not once.

If that isn't the definition of a fabulous weekend, I don't know what is...

Benny, our shiny-eyed boy...

Sam at the zoo with the llamas and flamingoes.

Bashy in front of the weird North African giant rodents. This was the only place he agreed to pose for a picture (I tried in front of the cheetah, leopard and lions, but sadly, no. :)

Snacktime at the zoo. (We had lots of those). Oh yes- we also made rasberry muffins this weekend!

And here are Max and Jonah, who had a very different sort of weekend - in the snow in Calgary! In fact, from the sounds of it (in the few times he actually agreed to speak to me on the phone!) they had a whole wonderful Spring break week of lego-building, pie-making, sledding, hockey-playing, and Grandma-and-Grandpa-ing! Lucky boys :)

So truth be told, the very best thing we did this weekend was pick up our sweet Maxie at the airport.   It's lovely to know he can be away from us and feel secure enough, at seven, to not feel homesick. But it's also lovely to have him be back home in our midst. Because truth be told, his Mama was a little Maxi-sick while he was gone...

But then again, if you've met Max (or have a Max of your own) - I know you don't blame me.

I know you understand.

 

 

Sweet Ben

Our sweet, always-smiling, everything-goes, zucchini-loving, board-book-eating darling Ben turned one on Friday, and so we've spent the last few days singing Happy Birthday, showering him in kisses, and, well, eating zucchini (even his cupcake was chocolate-zucchini...which may explain why he devoured the whole thing in about 2 minutes flat.) 

I know there is nothing more boring than hearing mothers talk about their babies, so you should probably stop reading right now and just skim down to the pictures. Because I can't help myself. This boy, this boy...oh my. I spend hour upon hour with him every day, yet I still can't get enough of him. He's so delicious I could just eat him right up. As his Grandma Susan says, his default is just to smile. At anyone. And everyone. When I take him shopping, he just stares at people intensely until they smile at him, and then he laughs. And he is such a good sport. He gets dragged around from school to activity to appointment, all day long - and still, he smiles. This boy is pure sunshine, I tell you. Beautiful, brilliant, gold-hued sunshine. The kind you want to bask in all day long.

Anyway- here are some photos of his first birthday and family party (and yes, I realize that he is in his high chair in all of them...but food is very important to him, you see. And for some reason, I only pulled the camera out when he was in his high chair. So there's that, too.)

The story of the cupcake tells itself.

Sweet Ben. If you are even a tenth as joy-full for the rest of your life as you have been in your first year, I think you'll do just fine in this world. Happy Birthday, my darling boy. May we all take a page from your book and try to greet each day with a smile and a light heart...

 

When is too much, too much?

One of my favourite training activities is an ice-breaker called "Group Juggle", where members of a group throw a soft ball across a circle to one another in a set order. In round one, they must set a time goal to get the ball around the circle as fast as possible. In round two, I introduce a plethora of other soft objects (basically, my kids' stuffed animal collection), and they try to "juggle" as many things as possible without dropping them. Of course, chaos ensues: objects collide, people scream and laugh, and many balls get dropped.

It always reminds me of my life. Round two, that is.

Round One is so calm, so organized, so efficient: twenty people focusing their attention on one ball, smoothly gliding from person to person. Every group always breaks their time goal on the first try. They get better on the second. By the third time, they are so confident that they are almost bored by their own success. Like someone in the stride of their career, they know they have mastered their job and nothing can throw them off of their game. They got this.

Have I ever lived a "Round One" type of life? I think to some extent I have. Certainly before I had kids I had figured things out so that, at least, the chaos I chose - self-employment, travel, lots of "projects" - was well-managed, organized, and efficient. But on the other hand, I've also always been a "bite off more than you can chew" kind of person. I've always loved having a million interesting things on my plate. I've always loved doing "too much". I've accepted this as being part of who I am. And while I wouldn't say I "thrive" on chaos, like some people do, I would certainly choose chaos over boredom. Even today, a big part of me quite likes the daily gong show that is the result of my proverbial juggling act of trying to balance motherhood, work, friends, creative projects, and some play.

Except the part that doesn't.

The other day, as I was picking up my son from his art class at the end of the day, I decided to count the number of times I had gotten a kid (or two, or three) in and out of their car seat that day. I counted twenty-two. Twenty-two times! It seemed so ridiculous that I counted again. I got the same result. No wonder my head was spinning.

It didn't take long for my mind to start whirling with worry about whether I have imposed my own "Round Twoness" on my poor unsuspecting children. Ostensibly, I know we do "too much". Like most families I know, we spend many before-and after-school hours running around to hockey practice, swimming lessons, art classes, soccer games, gymnastics class, and the like. Our days are stuffed - sometimes Christmas-dinner-stuffed. But this is our life. We created it this way.

This week, in those moments where I was rush-rush-rushing from one thing to another, I started to wonder: is there a point when "too much", is just too much? Is it possible that each family has a "tipping point", a critical juncture that is revealed to us not by a certain number of activities we do, but rather by a feeling in the pit of our belly that just tells us that we have reached it?

I think it's possible. But what to do? It's not like we are going to stop, outright, doing all the things we do. Is there some middle ground somewhere?

Maybe the folks in Round Two can offer some insight. For once the laughter has died down and the group sits down to talk about why they dropped so many objects, and what they could do differently to be more successful, most groups come to the same conclusion: they must slow down, breathe deeply, and try to find a balance between the boredom (Round One) and the chaos (Round Two).

Alas, so must I.

As I begin another week of hustling from one activity to the next, I vow to try to find some balance of my own. I will try not to hurry so much; to arrive a little earlier to places so we aren't always almost late. I will try to bike or walk Max to school as much as possible, since that seems to slow us down and make us calm. And I will try not to worry about skipping an activity if we are really into something else when it's time to go. It's not much, but it's a start.

But I'd also like to hear how you deal with the craziness of life, with or without kids. How do you find balance in your everydays? What do you do to make it work? Or do you just embrace the chaos and try not to think about it too much??

Help me out here, if you can.

And if you can't, well, let's at least sit down some day with a bottle of red and toast how lucky we are to have the luxury to worry about such things in the first place.  

A surprise of a day...

Some days our kids amaze us; some days they make us want to burst with pride; some days they blow us away with their wisdom, intelligence, intuition or compassion. (And, of course, some days they don't.)

But some days - not too often - they just plain surprise us. I'm talking chin-to-the-floor kind of surprise. The kind you just shake your head and laugh at all day long, because you just never saw it coming.

Today was one of those days for us.

You need a little history. On Friday afternoon, we got a call from the local French Immersion school telling us that they had a space in Grade 1 for dear Max, who starts school on Tuesday. We had long since dismissed this possibility, as we were #13 on a wait list with only 5 spots available. Naturally, we had made other plans. Those plans included Max going to Queen Mary, the English school a block away from our house, with his friend Sascha. We had been discussing this for at least 6 months now. He had visited the school, played in the playground there dozens of times, and had begun calling it "his school" for months now. It was decided. He was going to Queen Mary.

So. Friday and Saturday Jonny and I privately wrestled with the possibility of changing him to the French immersion, but ultimately felt that he would freak out if we changed the plan this late in the game. Even though we would love him to speak French, the English school was still a great option and we decided not to rock the boat and stick with the plan.

This morning we sat Max down to tell him about our decision. But first, (even though we "knew" what he would say) we asked him his opinion. Where did he want to go to school?

His first reaction was to say that it was our decision, and we could decide. We pressed him further.

"Well," he said, "I'd like to learn French. So, I'd like to go to the French school. Let's try it for a year."

What? Did we hear him correctly? How can this be? Wasn't he supposed to throw himself on the floor and say that if we sent him to the French school he would never speak to us again, or tear his eyeballs out, or something equally appropriate for a six year-old to say?

We pressed him even further. What about his friend, and the nice playground, and the PLAN we've been talking about for months? Did he really want to leave it all - to abandon the PLAN - and go to a new place where he didn't know a soul or speak the language?

"Oui", he answered, with a little smile, "I'm smart. I can handle it."

"Ok", said his Dad, playing the devil's advocate, "what would you say if we told you that we were going to send you to Queen Mary anyway?"

"Well", he answered, "then I would say, 'Non, Monsieur!'

The conversations continued throughout the day. He didn't waver from his decision once.

It looks like he's going to French school.

He seems to know what he wants, and why he wants it. His confidence and steadiness inspire me. If only we all had this much clarity about all the decisions we make in our life, how much easier our life would be! How much smoother, and less messy. He is only six, but when I look at him, I see a wise old man, just gliding through life, unfazed by the bumps and potholes along the way. I hope he always has this kind of confidence, this ability to cope and gracefully adapt to change. Somehow, I think he will. 

And as for me, well, once again I've learned today not to assume that I know what my son - or anyone, for that matter - is thinking or feeling at a given time. That it's important to ask questions, to listen, and not to be afraid of the answers. Because sometimes- sometimes - they might just surprise you.

And leave you shaking your head and smiling at how it all turned out just how you always dreamed it would.

"I was a Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids"

Michelle and I wrote this piece in 2000, when we had just got back from working on cruise ships with kids. I found it today in my "art file" (a stack of papers sitting beside my computer, in my messy office which I really should be cleaning up right now). It's interesting to read this over again now, ten years and three kids later. Is this still what I believe about how to celebrate children?

Well, yes. In many ways. I definitely believe in celebrating the small moments as well as the big ones (for example, when Mama just feels like a cupcake). I still believe it's important to believe in their dreams (even if one child (who still skates on his "outside edge") believes that he won't even need to be drafted, he will just go right on the Canucks team at age 19; and the other one wants to be a peacock (or maybe - maybe - a zebra, when he's older). I still believe in building castles (especially when one child is digging a big hole and his brother keeps filling that hole up again); and telling stories (especially when it's bedtime and one of them is about to have the tantrum of all tantrums because he wants Dadda to put him to bed and not me).

I've learned that you don't have to "let" kids colour outside the lines. They'll do that anyway. And that splattering paint on the walls is a wonderful activity for art class, but not my living room. I've also learned that "coddling" doesn't 'cramp their style', as I once thought, but is lovely and important and necessary for both children and their mamas. (By the way, that particular line was there because I had just been on a plane with a little boy with an "unaccompanied minor" tag around his neck sitting next to me. He was eight. An hour into the plane ride, he looked at me and said, "You know, this tag they make me wear is just crampin' my style! I gotta take it off!" I was so impressed by his bravado that I had his spirit in mind when we were writing the piece). 

There's a hilarious book about parenting that's called, "I was a Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids", and sometimes, I couldn't agree more. Weren't we all? And though I worked with children for many years before having any of my own, I never really knew what it was going to be like to be a parent. So when I read this "Celebrate Children" piece now, it makes me smile a bit at what I now see as naivety (and maybe a bit of smugness?) on how simple I thought it was going to be to be a parent. I don't blame myself. I really did believe all those things. I just didn't know how difficult it would be some days to do them all.

And yet, when all is said and done, I can honestly say that affirming them, and playing with them, and asking them questions and listening to their answers, and loving them unconditionally and, yes, being a constant reminder of how marvelous they really are...are all things I still believe all the way down to my toes, and still try to do every day. Some days are better than others. But still, I try.

It's all a Mom can do, right?

Something new...

The other day we went "adventuring" (which means we leave the house without knowing where we are going) in Ladner and ended up going berry picking and then to a new (or new to us, anyway) waterpark in Steveston. The kids loved the newness of it; the unexplored corners of the park, the rainbow-coloured sprinkler to run under, the turquoise squirters to attack unsuspecting children. We had a great day. This, combined with Ben's first swim(s) in the ocean and pool this week, has got me thinking about doing new things and going to new places.

It used to be, in my life b.c. (before children), that I seemed to do something new every other day -whether it was learning a new sport (like rock-climbing), exploring a new city or country, or trying my hand at a new project (like pottery, paper mache, or photoshop). I loved embracing the newness of each thing, and would obsess for days or weeks on each one. I loved the devotion, the feeling of throwing myself into something new, to just see what would come out. I miss those days.

These days, I'm lucky if I have five minutes at the end of the day to floss my teeth (or the energy and will left to do it). I don't have the uninterrupted hours I used to take for granted. What parent does? Most days I just feel like I'm in survival mode. But I also know that without adventure, without travel, without a "newness" in my days in some form, I'm quite a grumpy person. And so is my husband. So where do we go from here?

Well, we go to Ladner, for one. We go "adventuring" to new waterparks and new cities and new places close by. We take the kids on road trips to Portland and Calgary, and get them to help us plan our trips to Mexico and Montreal. We talk about our traveling days with them, and as soon as Ben gets a little older, we''ll take them to Bangkok and Paris and Ulaan Bator. And we try to take on new projects with them at home - like baking our own bagels, and making strawberry jam, and making hodge-podged mirrors - so that they, too, can get excited about trying new things. 

And as for me? Well, while I recognize that it's not realistic for me to take on big, ambitious new projects right now, I try to find new little things I can do to satisfy that stirring inside of me. Like take a 3-hour sewing class, like I did last week at Spool of Thread, where I made Max and Sam cozy new pillowcases. Or plan a weekend adventure with old friends, to reconnect and relax sans enfants. Or start up this blog, which helps me to get something on the page; something to mark this crazy, beautiful, sometimes overwhelming time of our life. It's not exploring a market in China, or learning to fly an airplane, or even cooking my way through Julia Child's cookbook - but at least it's new. 

And for now, that's enough for me.   

At the park...

 

We went to the park by our old house the other day. Some of the kids' friends from school were there, so they had such fun playing on the park they used to know so well for the good part of an afternoon. 

Max is still at that age where he will go to the park to play, as long as there is a friend or cousin there to play with...but I sense that this won't last for much longer. It's funny, the park thing. Before I had kids, I couldn't wait to have kids of "park playing age", so I could legitimately go there and be part of that "group" of Moms who had kids playing in the park. Now, to be honest, there is a big part of me that dreads the park. The hours seem to stretch on forever at the park. I know I should be living in the moment and fully enjoying this stage of our lives. But still, there is a little part of me that can't wait for that stage when the kids are too old to go to the park.

In 10 years, I'll probably start longing for the days when I can take my grandchildren to the park.

It's funny, this park thing. And this life thing.