We bayed at the full moon, the full moon almost as full as our hearts.
We ate birthday smores.
We waded upriver and tried to float back down.
We played football and chess and Bohnanza in the woods.
We sat around the campfire and told our favorite stories about Ethan. Mine was about the time the principal called because he had beaten up a third grader.
Just for the record, it was a glorious weekend in the wilderness.
Who needs Eden?
Last night I had Ethan on my lap fresh from his bath. He smelled delicious. Soap and skin and childhood.
While he was sitting there, I told him that he almost didn't make it to earth and Savannah said, "Really? Or are you just making that up?"
Apparently Savannah thinks much of my reality is fiction. (She may be right.)
I said, "Really," and inhaled his damp hair again.
This morning when David kissed me, it was longer than usual, with some slow tenderness thrown in for good measure. He was remembering. How close he came to losing me. How close he came to losing Ethan. How lucky we are. How everyday is a miracle. Oh yeah.
A couple of nights ago, Ethan fell asleep while we were reading. David carried him to bed and Ethan's legs looked as long as tree limbs sticking out from David's arms. When did that happen? His body used to curl. Now it is straight. Straight up. Straight out. All the time, his bones are going and going, his muscles and cells and brains and skin, all going and going.
Won't you stay? Please?
David put him to bed, and while the earth spun around its axis he grew a little more.
Tonight we will build a huge bonfire and dance around it like banshees and tell the moon how happy we are that this boy was born to us. And he will crawl in his sleeping bag and look at the stars until he falls asleep and then he will grow all night long.
Among his birthday gifts this year were two chapter books, a chess set, and a large map of the world.
After he left for school I looked at that pile and winced. Sometimes you can barely get your heart and mind around this thing called motherhood. I am betrayed by myself at every turn. I bought those gifts. As good as packed his bags and stamped his passport, said, "Go! Go! Look! Explore! Learn! The whole wide world is yours!"
What I want to do is lock the doors and lose the keys and deny the visa and ground the flights.
Or at the very least, tuck a note in his socks that says, "Go, then. But please don't go far."
Happy birthday, little ninja.
(Sunday shoes abandoned Sunday night, still there on Monday morning)
This morning I went to pick up some quilts that my lovely and talented Aunt Tori had finished quilting.
I got a flat tire on the way.
Which made me cry for a bit. Because I am worn out.
On Thursday my sister had warned me that it looked low.
On Friday Caleb's scoutmaster told me I needed to put air in my tire.
But I was busy, see?
So this morning I was stuck in the parking lot of a JB's restaurant (there is no sadder place) for nearly an hour with a flat tire.
An old man with a walker asked me if I needed help. Which made me cry a bit harder.
The lady (oh the shame!) from AAA who came to help me saw where the tire had worn through and said, "You must have driven on that too low for some time."
Indeed.
But I was busy, see?
And this morning, after a week spent at break-neck speeds and a weekend of ward parties and Sunday school lessons and firesides, all given by yours truly, I feel just like my tire.
Flat.
Popped. Pooped.
Gone as far as I can go.
I have been going on too low for too long.
And now I'm going to sit here for a while.
Woe is me.
For moments like this one:
Last Sunday night David had meetings. The dishes were done. The house was quiet. The kids were turning on lights and finding pajamas and pulling down the blinds in their rooms. I suggested we all meet on my bed for a story.
We began reading a book Savannah received for her birthday, The Underneath by Kathi Appelt.
Every night since then, the kids have asked, "Can we read again tonight?" It has been a lovely refuge in the storm of busy life.
Last night, the kids laughed out loud as I read. I kept reading until we got to a good stopping place. We had prayer. Then Olivia begged for one more chapter. I gave in. But that chapter ended in suspense. (Perish the thought!) The children erupted, "One more, one more, you can't leave it there!"
I gave in again.
The next couple of chapters ended in tragedy. I started to cry while I was reading. (Couldn't help myself.) Ethan was tucked into my side and he looked up at me, worried. I kept reading, trying to talk around the choking lump and struggling to see the swimming words. Everyone was sober when I finished. Some of us were crying. I kissed them all and sent them to bed.
I lay there for twenty minutes or so and then Savannah came in. Eyes, red-rimmed.
"Mom, I thought when you started reading again that something good was going to happen."
She wept on my chest while I put my fingers in her damp hair.
We stayed like that for a while, Savannah weeping silently, my shirt getting wetter, her hair slowly getting drier.
Oh, this is the good stuff. It was one of those moments I live for. My children snuggled around me, their hearts and minds full of story and the whole-hearted empathy that comes from good writing. The room still, they all ears and breath, and me the voice to a story so good you have to weep, unabashedly.
And especially the afterwards. The openness, the tenderness, the vulnerability, the shared joy and the shared sorrow, the shuddering breaths, the steady beat of our broken hearts, the sighs, the satisfaction of being comfort, the quiet.
Be still my heart. I am undone.
I wrote posts all week in my head. (Rest assured, they were as funny and delightful as usual. I am sincerely sorry you missed them.)
Monday's post was about drowning my Monday and my Monday sorrows in peach pie. As I write, that gorgeous pie is still on the counter...untouched. We've been too busy to eat it. And every time I offer it up, the kids just ask for peaches-and-cream instead. Who needs crust? Just go straight for the good stuff.
Tuesday's post was about how I spent all the grocery money on wigs, and how it was totally worth it. Don't worry, I've got cupboards full of beans. Who needs food when there is lip syncing to be done? Or we could always eat that pie that's sitting on the counter.
Wednesday's post was about how I ignored all the boa feathers scattered around my house and in my bed (ooo la la) and went to lunch with two of my favorite people in the world and how nice it was to pick up the conversation exactly where we left off, nearly nine months earlier.
Today's post is about how I am so low on my sleep quotient that I went out today to buy a wedding present for my very good friend's son.
Last night I told David, "Tomorrow is the Wilkins' wedding reception. And we're going. It's non-negotiable." (David hates wedding receptions. But non-negotiable means that if he wants to stay married to me he is going with me. I could see him weighing his options.)
I read the invitation four times this morning, because something kept going off in my head. As I was leaving Target today, gift in hand, I realized what it was.
It says: OCTOBER 16th.
And today it is only September, although I am so tired it feels about twelve years past that.
I actually stood stock-still in the parking lot as my brain finally figured it out and said, "Ooooh." After that, I got back in the car and went to the grocery store to buy nine tubs of cool-whip because I am going to have a nap and then drown myself in that pie no matter what.
Did I tell you we are putting on the ward talent show on Saturday night? Below is our entry. It is not the Black-Eyed Peas, but it has its merits, especially if having your own set of Beatles makes you completely gaga like me. If you don't have ten minutes to waste (we really can't help ourselves), skip to minute 8 to see David making love to a blonde bombshell. It is as delightful as pie.
somewhere in the middle of yesterday
At the end of yesterday, at the very end, after I had fed, and read, and testified, and prayed, and coaxed, and washed, and combed, and consoled, and sandwiched, and packed, and taught, and coached, and hurried, and kissed, and reminded, and wiped, and bused, and fieldtripped, and Costcoed, and Targeted, and unloaded, and restocked, and put away, and perspired, and tracked down, and dropped off, and encouraged, and picked up, and tutored, and picked up again, and talked, and listened, and bolstered, and picked up again, and nurtured, and cajoled, and cooked, and fed, and curriculum-nighted, and helped, and edited, and re-edited, and kissed, and prayed, and kissed, and goodnighted, at the very end of all that...Olivia showed up in my dark sewing room and asked me if I had any "cardboard" so she could make a pyramid for her game project that was due tomorrow.
I didn't handle it well. I was all out of nurture. And it was only by the grace of God that she made it out of the room alive. Well, that, and David showed up just in time.
Yesterday was so exhausting--mentally, physically, emotionally--that by the end I could only make animal noises.
David said, "Do you want to talk about it?"
I said yes and did my best. I started with, "I am a wonder!" at the top of my lungs, but then the rest of it dissolved into gibberish followed by primal hoots and grunts and whoops and deep bellows of frustration. I finished by saying, "Ay, carumba!"
At which we both dissolved into laughter.
He rubbed my back for a while, and it is not too much to say that it was the best twenty minutes of the whole day.
Have you heard? Even if you are a wonder, it is still the hardest job in the whole world. I mean, I was playing a gold medal game yesterday. You should have seen it: mothering and homemaking and serving and giving and blessing and nurturing and all with patience and compassion and perseverance and inspiration all day long, but then I lost it in the final minutes of competition.
Ay, carumba.
You can’t possibly do this alone, but you have help. The Master of Heaven and Earth is there to bless you—Yours is the work of salvation, and therefore you will be magnified, compensated, made more than you are and better than you have ever been as you try to make honest effort, however feeble you may sometimes feel that to be.
Remember, remember all the days of your motherhood: “Ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save.
-Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
My gaggle just walked out the door after the usual rounds and rounds of "I-love-you's" and "Have-a-good-day's."
This is how it goes every morning. They kiss me and then say their litany at least three times each. It sounds highly orchestrated...two have-a-good-days and then an unexpected pop of I-love-you, and then they turn it around and everyone does a different part. Maybe this time: I-love-you, have-a-good-day, I-love-you, I-love-you. It goes like that until I hear the front door close.
From the window I can hear Olivia asking Ethan if he remembered his lunch and Savannah saying "tikki-tikki- ta- taaa" as she practices her piano rhythms out loud for the neighborhood.
Olivia has a test today on integers. She was in our bed late last night trying to nail it down. After she left us to ourselves, David and I just looked at each other.
"She is good at so many things," I said.
(Just this morning I looked over at her as we read Alma 41 and I was a little bit jealous. She has the heart everyone should covet. Her resurrection is going to be spectacular...she will get mercy for mercy, she will get love for love. No question.)
And David said, "Yes, but one of those is not math."
"No," I said and grinned.
Is it wrong that I find this complete lack of math skill and even basic logic delightfully endearing?
The note on her lunch sack today (my version of have-a-good-day-I-love-you) included a picture of her brilliantly solving the most complex of integer equations: -5-(-7)=2. Her little stick figure was beaming. I hope her after-school-self will be as well.
Yesterday morning as I drove Caleb to the bus I turned on sports radio. The Boise State game was played on Monday night and it is one of my secret delights to listen to men after they're all hopped up on wins and last minute touchdowns. I have no idea what they're saying (what is "special teams," what is "an offensive line"), but they sound like boys. I love listening to people that can't help themselves.
They were talking about the highs and the lows of the weekend. The panel was listing all sports highs and lows until the last guy said, "The high...my son went off to school. It was time. He needed to go. I dropped him off at college this weekend. The low...when we said goodbye he gave me knucks. No hug."
One of the other guys said, "Yeah, that's not going to haunt you."
And everyone laughed and the conversation dissolved into the chances of Michigan's quarterback winning the Heisman. I sucked in my breath and looked at my son's size 9 shoes.
Caleb's bus arrived.
He kissed me. He told me I-love-you and have-a-good-day a couple of times. He shut the door and walked towards the bus. He turned around twice on his way there to wave at me. And then he gave one more wave from the bus door.
Just in case.
Well, unbelievably we have made it to the first weekend in September.
And it just happens to be a minor holiday weekend. Thank heavens. It also happens that it's going to be 112 degrees farenheit for most of it. Thank hell, I suppose.
I wrote a post on Monday that I ended up removing just because it never really said what I needed it to...if you thought that was bad, here is some more evidence that I am indeed floundering:
1. Today I took Ethan to the pediatrician. (He was suffering from sick-of-school, disguised as a sore throat.) Ethan's pediatrician used to be my pediatrician and so he always asks about me (how are you? how are you really? have you seen the doctor recently? they have new medicine for that now, etc).
This morning he asked, "How are you?"
"Good."
He tried again. "How are you?"
I sighed. "Tired."
He looked over at Ethan. "Isn't he supposed to be in school? Aren't they all in school now?"
"Yes."
"Then why are you so tired? What do you have to do all day?"
That seems to be the million dollar question, doesn't it?
2. The other day I was shuttling kids around town in my car when I overheard a conversation between Savannah and her friend. (Technically we were in David's car, but we've traded cars--as you'll see--until the weather cools down.)
Savannah's friend asked why we were driving a different car.
Savannah said, "Our other car gets too hot so my mom and dad traded."
"But doesn't your dad get hot when he drives it?"
"Yeah, but he's nice."
The worst part: it's totally true.
3. On the first day of September I worked on my budget. I thought I had pretty much let it lapse all through the summer and wanted to get back on track. I turned to a new sheet and starting filling in the boxes for the month and then turned back to find out what the ending balance on the last sheet was.
It said "DECEMBER 2009"
Well. No wonder.
4. This morning I tried to have a serious discussion with David about my floundering, to get to the bottom of it as it were.
I said, "I'm struggling. I know you don't want to hear that, but I'm struggling."
"With what?"
I paused, trying to put it succinctly.
He interrupted, "With how awesome you are?"
"Yes," I said, irritated, "with how awesome I am. It is such a struggle to be this awesome."
But he just sucked on my neck and laughed.