July 11, 2007
The Young Man's Leisure Guide, Ch.1: On Enjoying a Driveway, Installment No. 1
Ford is practicing basic board maneuvers. He circumnavigates the driveway in rough squares of measured effort, propelling himself faster each time. His legs are slightly bent and his form conveys assurance and ease, but his arms carry some tension. They coil upwards toward lifted shoulders, bearing fear's weight in two invisible buckets. All the while, joy and satisfaction beams through his proud, young face.
Chas soars above the ground, speeding faster than the sound of his rolling bearnings. He clicks over twigs in the driveway, sometimes rolling over the board as it stops dead beneath him. He laughs, I laugh. His palms are black from asphalt soot and his nubby toes are fearlessly worn smooth and black, too. I can hear him acting out an action scene, his voice trails behind him as he flies across the blacktop, exaggerated cries of help and pleas for mercy, ending with a thud as he slams into the woodpile, throwing himself in a heap onto the ground. He lies spread-eagle beside his skateboard, looking up into the walnut boughs above him, swaying in the hot afternoon breeze.
After a three minute meditation, watching the leaves flutter and sway, he mounts his hovercraft and soars back across the driveway, his own little cosmos
to flail himself into the jasmine, in another utterly romantic gesture of bravado. His heart just couldn't beat any louder.
Ford and I laugh again. We follow no particular path, only minding not to run in to each other. Sometimes we glide just so close, knock knuckles, smile again. There is no two o'clock school traffic on our street to mark our passage through the afternoon. Chas is in his own world but he sometimes shows us where he's been. Sometimes he shows us where he's going. And then, like us, you can catch him just gelling with the afternoon. At that moment you know he's off any agenda and he's just somewhere in the middle of a summer afternoon in the driveway.
Posted by Steph at 06:38 AM | Comments (1)
July 06, 2007
Museum Possible
Above my expectations, the MOMA trip was something I can't believe we didn't try sooner. But our mental armor was strong that day. We pared the visit down to a Braque and that huge dog painting in the second floor foyer (hell if I remember; I was too busy trying to convince Chas that, even though the paint looked like dabs of toothpaste, he indeed could not touch it)...
And then, the Matisse exhibit. For both boys, a treat: nothing but nummies, in all dimensions. Having found our medium, our tether to real life, we were set. All we had to do was circulate smoothly without shouting too many body parts and we'd eventually hit the outdoor mezzanine. It was perfect! Couldn't have dreamed up a better recess.
After knocking out the ya-ya's, we had pizza downstairs.
The MOMA heats up a good pint-sized pepperoni pizza and the kids devoured it. We swilled a few pints of beer and then Damon and Dwight (Damon's brother) took the kids across the street to Yerba Buena Gardens so that I could see the rest of the Matisse exhibit in peace.
I think the kids, mostly Ford, would have appreciated that second half of the exhibit, being a bold departure from the previous body of work. Matisse had begun cutting pieces of paper to rearrange in composition for his larger paintings. And then, down the hall, the "Jazz" series of prints, all laid out on the white table--what have we all come to know better as the work of Matisse?
Still, what's best for the boys is plenty or room in the schedule for freeform fun. And fortunately, what's best for them worked out to be best for me, too. Thanks, D :)
Posted by Steph at 06:43 AM | Comments (1)
June 28, 2007
we're thinking of buying tickets to hell
We’re a little culture starved around here, snug within the benign mycelium of silicon valley. Granted, if I’d just know where to look around here, I’d find something interesting on exhibit. But the truth is that I’m just acheing to go to a fussy art museum where I can feel the music of terrazzo under my feet and experience air conditioning without a trace of retail and ride that fabulous chase from security guard to security guard, close behind Chas, always on the fringe of expulsion as he tries to weave fast arcs around freestanding sculptures. Art is, after all, mostly about the personal experience one has with the piece, and with Chas there is no exception. He loves sculpture, it FASCINATES him to discover giant colorful pillars shooting from the ground or brushed-steel geometry shining in the sun. OH! The joy! Must scream and run circles around them all!
There’s one exhibit in particular that I’m planning on taking them to see sometime soon, the Matisse exhibit at the SFMOMA. Ford is a collage guru and I figure it might provide a springboard for translating some of his 2D work into a new dimension; specifically, creating something 3-dimensional that his younger brother might be tempted to play with (especially if it’s made of paper or papier-mache). But again, really, I’m just sad that we haven’t been able to go for so long, for fear that we might die during the struggle to patiently corral our children politely through a quiet space for art.
I think it’s more important that they experience art from a very young age for several reasons. First, I think it’s fun for them to see how some people have translated emotions or themes into art. Secondly, I like for them to understand the value and purpose behind the art process. Thirdly, I want them to grow to respect the work of others as well as their own art, because the enduring value of art is that it has the power to change the future in many ways: it can alter a person’s perspective, create controversy, quiet a restless mind, you get the idea. Lastly, I want them to evolve quickly within the rigid confines of the art museum institution so that they naturally respect that paticular environment as they would a shrine, an that is mostly because I’d LIKE TO ENJOY THE MUSEUM, TOO.
So, this weekend I’ve requested we pay the MOMA a visit, take our chances, hope for the best. There’s a book I heard about that recommends certain tips for taking 5 year-olds and older children to the museum, How to talk to children about art: is the title. As an art teacher, I feel qualified enough to come up with my own suggestions (which, in all it’s conceit, is actually true) but I’m still curious about what it has to say and am ordering it anyway.
Wish us luck! Double that for the MOMA.
Posted by Steph at 07:00 AM | Comments (5)
May 17, 2007
For Chas, who is now two and a half
A part of me wants to hide from you when I am working, vanity urging me to fruit, but the better parts of me always concede with a smile. You put down the skateboard, run to me in your helmet, wanting to draw too. And there you have it. I like your style, kid. Like the skatepark you told me you were working on here. Full of motion and joy. Hang onto that expressiveness.
I can't stand Pokemon. I don't understand Pokemon. And I don't know when Ford turned on the tv one day and turned himself on to Pokemon. But it happened quite naturally. And it happened just as naturally for you. Today I asked, flat out,
Chas, why do you like Pokemon?
You grinned sideways and replied,
Because they have nummies.
And nummies, being our slang for nipples, are an enduring delight. In fact, you wants some of your own. See?
One of the best things about having you around all the time is that you have a lot of energy and zeal, which rubs off on me. I try to remember being such an effervescent wellspring but I can't. I can only remember as far back as big wheels and stubbed toes. Was I ever this rowdy? I don't know. Probably not.
What's amazing is that, at the other end of the spectrum, you are able to focus for such long periods of time now on a drawing, or at play, or on a bug. Today the dry carapace of a ladybug fell to the ground when I opened your car door. Last week, you found this very ladybug on the beach and showed it to me, squealing in the strange context of your discovery, cradling it in your wonder. When I looked back at you, sleeping on the car ride home from Half Moon Bay, I noticed the ladybug between your fingers. You must have held onto it for two hours.
Was it intense focus, or was it the very toddler need to fill an empty hand? You do both equally well. I'm just glad I wasn't that ladybug, even though I'd have been flattered.
xoxo
*mom
Posted by Steph at 01:37 AM | Comments (4)
April 18, 2007
Easter weekend
It rained last night, throughout the night and into the morning, until the sun poked through the snivelling stratus and proclaimed that it was no longer a time of grieving. So the rain packed up and moved eastward, I'm told. And in its wake, the starlings came back out of hiding among the ivy boughs, and the quail promenaded atop the dewy lawn, properly.
For the past three weeks we have had occasional rains, and each time the pitter pattering begins above our heads on this old roof, we tell ourselves, "This is the last rain of the season." That was the last rain of the season.
Speaking of proper, this is a blog where I am obliged to to log a chronicle of events, and I missed the holy weekend of Easter. I've been called on this, so let me indulge you people on what you missed, heretofore two weeks.
Alis threw Seth an Easter rager. Thirty-odd toddlers turned every stone and log looking for eggs and chocolate on the Whitman commons that straddle Skyline ridge. She spent the week beforehand sewing fleece easter bunnies and dying eggs in pots of boiled beets and onionskins and cabbageleaves. On other nights, she wrapped heirloom seeds in tulle and tied them to colorful tongue depressors, and when she was busy wrapping little pots of violas and wheatgrass with tissue paper and hand-painted yarn, she enlisted friends to string wooden beaded bracelets into the wee hours or, as in my case, stand in her kitchen, slackjawed and dumbfounded, to gawk at all the hard work she really put into this fete while she dyed yet more gorgeous eggs.
Which is all to say that my boys cared neither here nor there about any of this, on that particular day, the day of the hunt, as they poked and prodded through the Lamb's Ears and Lilies until they found all forms of chocolate, but that we girls, and by that I mean me( because I was trying not to notice my younger competition) secretly dashed through the garden like a pixie, collecting shiny glass beads and seed packets, purple-and-orange violas and wheatgrass pots, slipping them inconspicuously into Chas' easter basket while he gorged on his gold, his precious chocolate. Occasionally I'd urge him to pick up a seed packet that I'd found, and he'd probe the entire area first for chocolate, certain that I had scouted for nothing other, and finally reach for the only thing hidden in the foliage, which was indeed the seed packet and which he indeed picked up. For me!
And so, with seeds to plant, I'm faced by the bare patches of three quarterempty flowerbeds, spared just for such purpose, and the blank face of a front and back yard, freshly plowed by a thirty year-old and rusting tractor with a likewise rusted and ringing plow, just days ago before the rain fell. I see mounds upon which to plant two to three ppumpkins seeds apiece. Give or take a melon.
I have tenacious, hard callouses on my hands from three weekends ago, when we spent the rest of Easter weekend in Pebble Beach, playing drunk barefoot tennis doubles into the black of night. I'm not sure how I didn't bleed through my feet by bedfall, on those heavy, luxurious sheets; on the contrary, my feet tingled as if they'd been freshly shorn of three old inches of thick hide. Perhaps they were?. Indeed, the rest of me felt that idyllic; it's fun having rich friends with third homes nestled in the surreal beauty of California's monterrey bay peninsula. We drove home along the coastal highway bisecting the prim acres of golfing lawn and the rugged, emerald blue jumble of ocean and guano-stained rock and the white froth of my amazement. Acres upon acres of blooming artichoke and fruiting strawberries, laborers scattered along the endless rows that stretched inland, hunched over the produce like props. Surreal produce signs with enormous specimens that seemed to shine from the light of the sun itself, which glared down sternly upon us as we shook off the two day hangover that only an irresponsible weekend in someone else's mansion in someone else's neighborhood could bring.
Posted by Steph at 06:45 AM | Comments (0)
April 03, 2007
6 or a Half Dozen Stitches?
Growling echoed across the house and within my heart like a bad dream on repeat; I knew Chas was on top of the dog somehow and when I ran into the room, there he was, just like I imagined. Three years ago, Ford was in this same position when Seti snapped, scarring his cheek. This time, I whisked Chas off the ailing dog and flew out of the room. And on the way, looking back at Seti, I ran us into the corner of a door.
If you've never watched your child's head bleed, you've never experienced that unhinged, piquant surreality of blood everywhere, coming from everywhere on your child's head at once, struggling to find it's source in the pulsing flow of it all, onto the floor, soaking your clothes, his hair, his entire face, while trying to find your keys, trying to find your purse, and shoes for each child and a rag and a cellfone and, in my case, my sanity. You don't understand how it is possible for such a small child to leave such an extensive trail of bloodsplats from corner to corner in the house as you run in circles, looking for all your missing pieces.
But we spent some quality time connecting with other parents in the ER, watching in amazement as Chas threw spinning arcs with an inflatable football across the waiting room to a new friend from Amsterdam. And as he sat still under the tired fluorescent lights in triage while the plastic surgeon stitched his perfectly positioned 2.5 cm glabellar lesion (with special-order blue Proline thread! He was very impressed), I was able to sing with him and smile and nod that this may very well be the first of many such visits, and that this one (despite being of my fault and not his, and given his physical exuberances) was certainly overdue.
Posted by Steph at 06:17 AM | Comments (2)
February 27, 2007
Composting in the Rain
Despite my occasional irritations with way the boys continue to remain so close by my side, there are upsides to their lingering dependence on me. I can still redirect muddles between them by simply leaving the room, a perfect curveball. This morning, I quelled an escalating feud between them in the living room, one I was almost ready to fuel with my own frustration, by halting mid-step, turning round and retreating to the mudroom, where I silently baffled them as I put on my socks and boots and headed out into the yard. They watched me from the stoop as I opened the shed door, near the garage, and began excavating hoes, cultivators and shovels from an ethereal matrix of dusty cobwebs, spreading them like battle artillery, single-file, to rest along a low-lying branch. And within minutes, both were eagerly digging into the understory of a giant oak tree in the front yard, heaving shovelsful of composted peat into random piles around me.
Chas soon began to look for earthworms. Crouching over the dugout, in the space I'd carved beneath the tree, he picked fat glossy creepers between his fingers and carried them around the yard, through the house for a little while, taking them on a helpless tour of distraction before returning to my side. As if he'd forgotten it was still in his hand, Chas would ask to take another bath (perhaps his third?), doe-eyed and head tilted, and I'd look down at his hand to find another gleaming, limp, pinched annelid. "I wanna put him in the bathtub," he'd say, quite matter-of-factly. And I'd have to disagree, smiling apologetically, as I turned the compost in the drizzling rain.
Posted by Steph at 11:14 PM | Comments (0)
February 19, 2007
Our Third Child
I read somewhere, ten years ago when we were puppy-surfing, that a Jack Russell Terrier is like having a perpetual three year-old in the house. Well, that's pretty true. Seti, our dog, is all about the "now" and the "me" and balls and toys. He doesn't always share; in fact, he's always hoarded his own ball at the dog park, fending off dumbfounded pit bulls and retrievers five times his size, just by the obnoxious tang in his snarl. And, just like any preschooler, you can distract him off the nasty scent of a dead rat in the backyard just by saying the magic words "where's your ball?" It's so easy.
Ball. Ball is life. Well, ball is second to frisbee, but we're out of frisbees right now. We have two chronically wet tennis balls (you can see why, above) and one racquetball (a far superior choice to all manufactured dog toys for the medium dog set). Seti will carry the ball around the house, right under your feet, hoping you will throw it. When you sit down to talk on the phone, he will drop it at your feet. When you try disapppearning into the bathroom for ten minutes, he'll unlock the door with his razor sharp Jack Russell perserverence and drop the ball at your feet. And certainly, when you slip into a nice warm bath, ready to erase the day's grime off your body and soul, Seti will come and drop the dirty ball into the bathwater. Then he'll sit and stare at you imploringly, his brown eyes now big obsidian orbs, penetrating their voodoo into your weariness, and there's no way to resist him: you find yourself throwing the ball this way and that, trying to outwit the bastard but damned if he doesn't catch your every curveball! He's a machine. He'll do this all day. And here he is, twisting Chas' arm in the new bath.
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November 12, 2006
Chas & Abby
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October 14, 2006
Horsing Around in the Moonlight
It's midnight and I can't sleep. The shelf above my desk retains a wall of towering fabric scraps, folded in assembly and ready to be all cut and sewn up. Into what? Perhaps a glow-in-the-dark circuitboard horse? Why not!
Cutting through thick wool felt is so satisfying, like the slow and steady joy of learning to cut through paper in preschool. And the way it sounds, like horses chomping on warm hay.
The surplus yarn in the office here is Fall-friendly and begging to be touched, wishing it were warm enough to get all knit up into scarves and pants and hats. Otherwise, it makes great manes and tales. But do you notice that Chas is wearing fleece?? After eight months of flip-flops I found myself wearing wool socks under my Air Jesus' and I felt so...back in northern California. Layering is fun. 60 degrees F feels so nice, so much better than 90 degrees in mid-October.
Posted by Steph at 04:26 AM | Comments (1)
October 13, 2006
Oooh, If the Dust Ever Settles in This House...
A circuitboard made of white foam and leftover yarn that Ford's friends made during his birthday party; Chas' wild volcano painting, originally with volatile sound effects; A featherwreath adorned by Betty and Boo; Ford's rock collection: "magic rock," amethyst geode, coral from Galveston, birthday geode from CZ...
Our Fall nature table. Little Ivy Elizabeth Walker, Ford's favorite character last year from The Village, sitting on the resting rock in the middle of a little Hill Country glade; Burr oak and Post oak acorns from around town; Edwards limestone; Ball moss from everywhere around town; chickenfeathers and unknown native grass, what I pretend is a White-Tailed deer...
at Ivy's feet: "HEXAGONS!" that Chas found on our walk through the neighborhood (courtesy of a sunbleached, long-dead armadillo skeleton)...
Gretel, another storybook favorite, plays cavalier atop Big Billy Goat Gruff; and no nature table in our house is grounded without a chicken.
Posted by Steph at 05:51 AM | Comments (0)
August 22, 2006
104 F
It's mid-August and we're roasting under happy white hot skies with evenly-spaced, cottony clouds. And it's dry. Natives hark back to the 1950s and dust storms and hectic farming, and they get giddy about gray clouds on the horizon but are too supersticious to predict rain. When the clouds pass overhead, they spit fat droplets that pat the pavement and vanish magically, evaporating before you can call it rain. And then you sigh and shrug your shoulders.
In the morning, I crawl downstairs to start a pot of coffee and let the hens out for the day. Almost immediately they run for respite in woodier shade, and I start watering the deer-picked, rabbit-picked, chicken-picked truncation of a summer garden: wrinkled and dark green, prostrate. Within minutes, the cicadas start humming a low, warm-up drone. Like dry beans shaking in a parched pod, the cicadas rattling trance intensifies as the heat sets in. I slink back inside.
Chas wants to be outside at all hours, so for him it's all a matter of being buck naked out there. I have no choice but to follow him with a tube of sunscreen in my back pocket and a narrow set of eyes, since the job mostly entails shepherding him out of direct sunlight. Which is difficult, really, because our yard is mostly sun. He glows in the sunshine, his white back reflects the entire spectrum of light as he examines a pillbug in the brown grass, something the hens must have overlooked; they're busy meanwhile under the boxwood, flinging dusty mulch onto the walking path as they burrow six inches into the landscaping. I re-pave the path with the broom as I return for cover, my feet now dusted with roasted umber dust. Chas runs in my wake, the chickens flurry from the hedge to follow him, but the door closes. From inside, Chas laughs at the unaffected triplet standing on the doorstep, wasting little time before they start scratching again and picking at the potted ferns.
Posted by Steph at 05:22 PM | Comments (2)
July 22, 2006
Baby Chicks!
Last weekend, the kids were so thrilled with the new chicks at the grandaparent's house that they insisted we get some of our own. So we did! Three Auraucana chicks. And when I get more sleep, I can talk all about them: Abby, Boo, and Betty. The kids named them i the car on the drive home.
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July 16, 2006
Nonstop
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June 10, 2006
Painting With Chas
It's really too hot to paint outside during that quiet time of the day when the kids are centered. If I leave Chas to paint alone on the floor in the kitchen, I begin to prickle with anxiety, because it's never long before paint begins flying across the room towards the wool rug (which, being wool, easily stains. And which, for the record, I refuse to live without.) It's a high stakes gamble, but one I can avoid if I sit him on my lap at the kitchen table.
So there we sat, yesterday, and I found I was able to engage him for a longer period of time than usual, simply by painting alongside him, on the same page. Normally, I'd discourage this--it goes completely against my teaching style, which is to let them simply create on their own. But he seemed to enjoy telling me what he was doing, which colors should go where, and he thought what I did was funny. He loved sharing the piece of paper, maybe it reminds him of sitting on my lap when we read a story. For this reason, it felt just right.
Posted by Steph at 08:07 PM | Comments (3)
Bushwhacker, Summersaulter
Chas. Bull Creek Trail, Austin
He somersaults now, too! It usually follows "Daw-Dah," which means "Down Dog."
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May 31, 2006
Breakfast Fuzzies
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May 24, 2006
The Child Naps A Lot
It's not fair that Chas can nap like this without me. But Ford will have none of it. He meets my exhaustion sometimes with sandpaper to my nerves, and I could just cry. So I've started taking vitamins more regularly, and with exercise and a little more sleep I've built up a better defense against the afternoon slump. Damon has introduced me to blackberry sage iced tea in mason jars. And I've taken up painting the sleeping babe.
I signed up for an encaustic painting class. A while back, I mentioned Amy Ruppel and her wonderful buttery paintings. I love this texture. It's what I'm craving, more fat. Anyway, I've been wanting to learn for years, it's just been hard to find an instructor. Lo and behold, they have one in Austin at the Laguna Gloria. So I cancelled our Vegas plans and am now sitting primly on the edge of my seat, waiting for two weeks to pass so I can start playing with oils and beeswax.
There are no more caterpillars. I keep waiting for a second generation to spill out of the trees but they haven't arrived. I jogged along the creek today. The white rocks are dry now and milk-green where water trickled down only weeks ago, runoff from uphill. The pools where the big fish swim are coated with pollen and dust and milkweed tufts. Every big patch of sunlight holds a surprise along the trail. I've learned to ignore the scattering spiny lizards and squirrels. At the last minute, before my foot falls on them, they dart into shadows, bark and leaves flying behind them. So I ford through the little forest community, knowing it will all unfold before me.
Unless it doesn't. My foot descends on a fat snake. Like the recoil of a shotgun, I yank back with so much force that I pull a muscle in my chest. But the snake is safe, motionless, and only as I bend down to study it does it slink into a rotten tree stump. Who knows what else I've narrowly missed?
Posted by Steph at 04:24 AM | Comments (1)
May 22, 2006
It's Been Too Long
Chas wore this dress of mine yesterday. I had to roll it about six times until it was short enough for him to just barely clear the ground in, and he just barely cleared the ground all over the garden as he trampled the runner bean seedlings and bulldozed through the birdbath. Finally, he returned inside with a little wicker basket and a tiny Schleich lamb at the bottom of the basket, declaring his arrival with a wet pattering across the tile floor and up onto Damon's chest, where he soon fell asleep.
We went out on date last night. This is not something we do often, but my parents were in town and they decided to relieve us. So, after a quick bite and a paint lesson from my dad:
We left. We drove as fast as we could to make the 7 o'clock reservation. It was still hot outside, and my dress stuck to my legs in the car while I waited to the air conditioning ot kick in. Summer is just getting comfortable; you could see it in the smile of a man in his convertible, sunglasses reflecting the red light: summer is wedging itself back in the seat of the rocker, next to a side table with sweet iced tea and a paperback memoir.
Sunset raked over white table linens at the restaurant. Wine and hands, a sublime filet and the finest long grain rice from Texas; I felt ten years younger immersed in the quiet of our childless space. I mentioned that the restaurant reminded me of the bistro in Mill Valley, the one with the gorgeous hostess, but I realized that the similarity lay not in the setting but the absence of stress. Children have been the bane of our dining experiences. No matter how charming it is when they politely request macaroni and cheese, each good deed is met with an equally annoying faux pas: say, a fork thrown across the table and barely skewering the woman at the table behind me.
We kill 45 minutes atop a parking garage.
And then eat molten chocolate cake a la mode with pints of ale at the drafthouse theater.
My head is heavy and tipping off my shoulders on the winding road home, smiling and satiated but sleepy.
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May 11, 2006
Uh, No. And You're Weird.
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May 08, 2006
?
Chas inserts this gesture at the end of each question. He's finally figured out how to intentionally manipulate us.
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April 28, 2006
Studio Friday: PLAYTIME
Put a paintbrush in your mouth for family art time. Take a deep breath. No matter how many times you've cleaned up today, this will be the biggest mess. I can't wait to see more fun at Studio Friday.
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April 27, 2006
Wild
In the morning, it’s the last thing I do. I dunk the special black comb with wide and narrow teeth into a tall glass, filled with water. I take a deep breath, forgetting to exhale, and recruit ten seconds and a truckload of patience.
You hear the water running, see me step forward with the glass and comb, and your eyes suddenly spark behind an impish grin. Suddenly, you are tearing through the house, little feet thumping across carpet, patting excitedly atop tile. Unleashed giggles bounce in your wake. I grope for a lock of hair and get nothing but a flurry of laughter and air.
It’s like wool back there: the comb would stand straight if you would sit still, but away you prance and the poor comb bounces in place atop your head like a clinging tranquilizer dart. You disappear behind a corner and discover a forgotten toy.
I kneel behind you as you play with the toy car. Sections of hair at a time, I gently unweave tiny dreads from the night before. Your hair is fine flax. As I arrange it, tame it with comb and water, you begin to look more like a normal toddler boy and less like a normal Chas.
Sloping waves mount each other in back, I swoop longish locks over one another, rounding my way forward to frame your face. The comb easily slides through your fringe in front; it is immune to your rowdy tossing in bed and tantrums in the carseat. I swing the comb down and around your cheek, parting it left. You grin, suddenly noticing me. With both hands, you grab my cheeks and screech! I see your tiny, perfectly round molars in back, and your squinting blue eyes coax me to drop the comb and tickle you.
After we stop laughing, we both sigh. Then, speechless with a hand over my mouth, I watch you tousle your hair up joyfully as a dog on a dungheap. When you are finished, you check my reaction with a curled lower lip and shadowed eyes, trying to mask your grin. But I see it! And we both acknowledge our dueling gumption.
Posted by Steph at 12:20 AM | Comments (11)
April 20, 2006
I Have Cabin Fever and I Need to Vent
It's a crapshoot, this pediatrician's office business; in my experience, one visit to the doctor's office has the power to precipitate subsequent visits in the following weeks. Still, I had two kids with a high fever on Tuesday morning and I was forced to take them in to the pediatrician; Chas boiled in the bed at 105.4 F the night before. Still, take one immunocompromized child to an infirmary and he's bound to pick up another bug. Which is why this visit to the doctor's office on Monday was not the first visit but our third in the past week.
The previous Monday, I brought a happy, robust Chas into the office for a well-child visit. We walked around the huge lobby aquarium while we waited, patted the glass, scrambled over magazines, dumped jars of otolaryngoscope tips, pocketed tongue depressors for our garden (they make good labels) and dug through the children's books before receiving a clean bill of health among those agonizing tears of hurt and betrayal that accompany immunizations.
Three days later, Chas was drowning in phlegm, trying to cough it all upwards yet forced to swallow it back down . After dropping Ford off at a playdate, Chas and I kept driving down the road towards the doctor's office. Presenting with nothing but a happy disposition and a chunky cough, we returned to our car after our quick visit with a prescription for an antibiotic and meds to treat acute bronchitis.
My brother John's wedding and Easter Sunday came and went, and so busy we were with all the drinking, barbeque-feasting, egg-dying, visiting and mayhem that it was hard to notice both kids getting progressively sicker. On Monday, we were all slumped over. I tripped three times while jogging, and nearly fell over in yoga while trying to find a focal point on a bleak, gray wall. Atticus spun in circles around Ford at the lake, as my poor kid sat on the diving platform, it seemed the entire neighborhood had converged at the lake to revel around him and his blah expression. By Monday night at midnight, Chas had developed the high fever to push us near the edge, on splinters, until morning came and we could take him to the doctor.
Dragging Ford along was difficult, more so than usual. But we made it through the door of the lobby, and Ford found the nearest bench on which to lie. I suggested the nurse to pull both kid's charts.
This technique works well with siblings: I told Ford to demonstrate for Chas how to cooperate with the doctor's exam, even though we were at the doctor's office "only to treat Chas." And do you know who had the fever? Who tested positive for influenza? Ford. Chas' results were difficult to read, but we were intructed to treat both kids for the same thing, the flu.
I think I was wiser when I used to take Ford to the Texas Department of Health & Human Services for his routine immunizations. For one, it's cheaper. The wait is usually less than twenty minutes. The nurses are always efficient, soulful black women with impeccable technique. And the best part? No sick kids to bump into. As for the "well child" portion: who can't measure their own child's dimensions and follow a developmental checklist?
It makes sense: $15 for immunizations at a clinic, with a 15 minute wait
vs.
$20 copay + ($100 abx & esoteric meds+ $20 copay) + ($40 copay + $40 addition meds) and HOURS lost. Am I right?
Posted by Steph at 05:27 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
April 06, 2006
Chas,
I watched you carefully this afternoon, at the lake, while your brother threw a fit about his ill-fitting swimsuit. You were so content to walk the length of the short sandy ledge, back and forth, cautiously. When my busy eyes returned to you, I found you pouting, somehow affected by something I missed, ready to cry, but so willful not to. My eyes flinched and I bit my lip, but you stood there facing the sun and let your feelings rest with a deep sigh and a frown to the ground. Even when I was on alert, a bear-sized yellow lab lumbered up and grabbed the football you found, right out of your hands. The nerve! You YELLED at him, and pointed to "MUH BALL!" When the dog walked away, you looked at me so desperately. I had to do the impossible, and explain to you that it wasn't really your ball after all.
But then, I was fortunate that you are nineteen months old, you let your feelings go again, as I pulled you into the cold lake and encouraged you to splash. You upshifted to rowdy, and the raucous splashing started, drenching my shirt and sunglasses and soul with chilly wet abandon. The other day, you were in the lake right here with the two boys. You were frustrated that they kept swimming to and from the diving platform without you. So I watched you meditate through your approach, but always kept two hands behind you: sure enough, you walked all the way out to the platform, until your little button nose went under water, just before the metal ladder. When I scooped you up, I saw fearlessness in your chattering, toothy smile. You are so courageous and unfettered in the water. As I laughed and nuzzled my face into your neck, I felt pride mixed with fear: I can't leave you for a moment near water. You have dived into our bathtub, climbed into the kitchen sink, taken off towards the waterfall at the creek, traipsed along the edge of every fountain, submerged your own head (while lying face-down!) in the bathtub and stood in the rain and in the shower: completely in love with the feel of water around you. I'm so thankful we don't have a swimming pool, but really, it takes less than two inches of water.
While you were getting ready for bed tonight, I handed you your football so I could attend to Ford. While I brushed and cleaned and put on pajamas, you threw the ball high into the air over your head, over and over again. It would disappear and you'd laugh like a robust Vince Vaughan, and it would fall five feet in front or behind you. Then you threw it up a foot or two in the air, and you caught it! And you caught it again. You did this like you've been doing it for months. Have you? When I applauded, your joy noticed the audience, and you joined me in clapping, laughing even louder. And afterwards, you picked the football back up and threw it high again, catching it on the return.
For every day that I've forgotten to read to you, or let your wet diaper pickle your bottom, I've been rewarded with these little hints of determination. It's proof that there's a lot of nature to match nurture. It's amazing what you have managed to teach yourself while I've been preoccupied, and I'm happy so say that , at the very least, I haven't been too preoccupied to notice.
love, ma
Posted by Steph at 04:14 AM | Comments (7)
April 04, 2006
While My Battery Was Dead
I just got a new battery for my Powerbook. Damon stood in line for service while Ford played a video game. I stood over Chas while he stood bouncing on one of the black ball-shaped seats at the kiddie table.
Friday morning we took a hike along the creek. We chased a young bullfrog, who teased us along a stretch of cattails at the bank before disappearing into some brown muck. Ford was so eager to catch him, standing there with his little plastic red bucket. Chas only wanted to shout and jump into the water. We had to retreat into the woods to keep everyone safe. 
I stopped to inspect the mustang grapes, and Chas disappeared. I felt my heart in my thighs ten seconds later, when he reappeared uphill about thirty yards; he had found a loop and had come round to surprise us. Mind you, we were walking along a twenty-foot precipice that overlooked the creek.
Chas is a bushwhacker, both on and off the trail. We put him point blank, while Ford trailed behind, scouting for honeysuckle. He managed to find four blossoms, and gingerly dissect them for the four drops of nectar among them.
On saturday, we biked along the lake. Though the landscape is vibrant and the wildflowers are in bloom, people were the life force along the lake, running, canoeing, parading, strolling. Winding through the trees, we trailered the boys and their havoc, like a small zoo train with a cage of crackhead chimpanzees. I wore a constant smile; for one thing, I wasn't the one hauling the trailer, and for another: it really does sound cute. Despite the mayhem, I like robust, vibrant kids and my kids are anything but reserved.
Some jocks were playing kayak polo under the MoPac bridge, the ball barely clearing the beams beneath me as we rode over them. A Pug meetup and show along the waterfront, one was wearing a pink tutu. A birthday party for a resident goose. The swallows are back. Wisteria and Chinaberry blossoms made the air heady and seductive. I am in love with Austin.
Dinner with friends Saturday night at a neighborhood dig, margherita pizza under the oaks with good wine while the kids scrambled on the lawn and playground. A two-man blues band played in an alcove on the patio. Sunday morning completely disoriented me. The blazing heat, with the loss of an hour, drove me straight into summer. Jogging through our barely-rural neighborhood, grasshoppers zirred past me across the blacktop. The only thing to ground me in April was the fresh, green terrain, littered with half dollar-sized white flowers; everyone's yard looked like a driving range. Wooly bear caterpillars marched across the road, and a brown tarantula stood paralyzed as I passed it on the curb.
Posted by Steph at 06:11 AM | Comments (2)
March 30, 2006
Breakfast at Stephanie's
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March 25, 2006
The Butt of My Brain
We meet our friends every afternoon to play at a playground. It's a standing date: around 4pm every day. By that time, at least one of the toddlers has taken a nap, and the big boys have built up considerable steam. They scamper, laugh, and shout potty talk like nobody's business. Polly and I stand, exasperated, torn between roles of shadowing the little ones as they teeter on the edge of tall perches and jumping into the storm to interrupt the trashy talk. We wonder why they can't just use other words, when quiet time at home consists of lengthy discourse on subatomic particles and static electricity. Why Ford can't make any word substitutions when he's so clever to point out that "I don't like to snuggle in the bed like a pack of batteries." Instead, we hear endless "BUTT-HEAD!" and "BOOTY BUTT-HEAD!" and "PENIS HEAD!" in the drone of play combat that orbits around the playscape following a stampede of little feet.
To make matters worse, Chas loves to follow them around the playground, bouncing and roaring, tumbling every now and then as he tries to keep up, but occasionally shouting, "BUTT!!!!" He bends forth with a red face to proclaim the profanity as loudly as possible. It's hard enough trying to get him to say normal words, like "sock" and "help" and "horse," but I get so irate when I catch Ford leaning into Chas' face, to teach him to properly pronounce "BUTT." At the playground, when people hear "BUTT-HEAD" coming from Chas, they turn to me, surprised and amused. At these times, my eyes try rolling back into the nether region of my skull, to a place where fading dreams linger: where my house would always be tidy, where I'd ride horses while the kids napped, and where my boys would grow up perfect.
Posted by Steph at 08:56 PM | Comments (5)
March 24, 2006
DFW Intl. Airport
Into the relentless sunny wind, Chas ran towards the distant airplane as it lifted off the tarmac. "DET! DET!" he shouted, pointing, and Ford translated it for me: JET, JET! HE reached the end of the berm and stopped still, apprehensive, as the jet loomed closer. But the roaring became intense, and Chas turned round and trotted back to me, quietly frowning to the ground, pink cheeks bouncing. I scooped him up and together we tracked the gleaming silver jet as it thundered over us.
Ford is into jet turbine engines. He likes to describe their operation, and tell stories involving turbines. He will pick up a gall off the curb and tell me, "Mom, do you know why this gall is so fast? It's because it's a jet TURBINE-powered gall that shoots through the sky and into your eyeball!" or "I'm so fast because I have two jet turbine engines, spinning like huge atoms, on my sides." He has been into jet turbines for while, but I can't remember what set it off, this fiery interest. These days, he's all about atoms, particles, molecules, jet turbines, and electromagnetic forces. I'm not cut out for this.
Posted by Steph at 05:48 AM | Comments (2)
March 11, 2006
Studio Friday: Eyes, and Chas' Birth Quilt
When Chas was somersaulting in utero, around seven months, I began to stew up a birth quilt for him. At the time, Ford had checked out a book from the library that I found terribly inspiring, Ducklings and Pollywogs by Lizzy Rockwell. The guache and watercolor illustrations were flat but the compositions rich in detail, and I'd find myself oggling the pages when I was on the phone, or sipping coffee. It was the theme that most intrigued me: paying reverence to a small pond throughout the year, noticing small changes, seasons. So I chose to use a pond theme for the quilt. One afternoon I tore the colors I loved out of old magazines, and after I had a collection, began to assemble them on a page in my sketchbook. After the arrangement seemed right, I picked up a glitter pen and made droplets fall upon the water, adding rings of vibrations through the pond, as if I was looking into the water during a rain. For more interest, I started drawing black eyes of frogs. I cut them out and pasted them onto the paper (I had made about twelve little compositions). After that, I was in love.
Of course, after selecting fabrics and playing with applique, I chose a composition based less on cryptic eyeballs peeking out of the water and more on the idea of lilypads, or pods, on the water. Something more evocative of how I felt as I sewed: healthy, whole, very pregnant.
I handpainted the watery background, staining the kitchen floor with aqua splatters. Scraps of pond colors littered the hallway floor, beneath the table where I worked. Natural specimens lined the window above my sewing machine: reeds, willow blossoms, seed pods and empty chrysalises. With my machine, I sewed ripples in the water fabric with gossamer thread, sandwiching soft layers and different textures of cotton. I tied the quilt with different shades of green, like the aquatic plants that slide between my toes when I wade.
Chas noticed the circles one day, very young, and smiled, running his finger along the seam of a circle. I was so pleased.
And I like the way it turned out, myself.
Posted by Steph at 10:02 AM | Comments (17)
March 06, 2006
The Brutal Curiosity of Youth
The lake today breathed a joyful sigh of peace before spring break arrives, next week, to slosh her with boat fuel, beer and music. Polly and I stood thigh-deep in the cold water, prattling about this and that, while Atticus and Ford rollicked on and off the diving platform. Chas and Tabitha teetered chest-high in the wakes from the occasional ski boats, the water slapped playfully against the banks and the youngsters, who didn't seem the least appalled. What I thought was a minnow and then maybe a tadpole turned out to be a mayfly larva, swimming like a snake an inch below the surface. As I lifted it out of the water atop my palm, it walked along walked along my hand with surprisingly deft strength against the water's surface tension. In order to take a closer look, Ford did something I cannot do anymore: he lifted the insect between his fingers and carried it away.
Most children enjoy letting slugs wander across their arms, caterpillars creep over fingers. Dad brought a jar of grasshoppers for the kids to play with last summer. Chas sat and picked them, one by one, out of the jar, letting them crawl all over himself. When I was Ford's age, I remember picking up insects in this matter-of-fact way. I had Stag beetles, tarantulas, and pet grasshoppers, large, shiny red-on-black grasshoppers that I kept in mason jars. And then one day, I picked up an earthworm. It was cool, pinkish-brown and very long. I wondered at it's sleekness, imagining that it could stretch to great lengths if it wanted to. So I pulled it gently between my fingers until it cracked in two places, exposing its tragic red insides to me. I remember dropping it, as I have seen Ford abandon his kill, only I felt sick. I still feel sick. I wonder what Ford feels, when his fingers erase another small life. Lifting him over the bank, as we were leaving, I noticed a very small gossamer wing on his arm.
(Sigh.) The mayfly?
It is midnight in early March, and I'm hearing what I can't bring myself to believe: a mockingbird serenading outside on the telephone pole.
Posted by Steph at 11:55 PM | Comments (8)
March 05, 2006
Pedernales morning
We drive to the Pedernales River this morning for a hike. It is quiet around 11:50 except for the last of the churchgoers leaving mass. We cruise under a weary, overcast sky that echoes a landscape hardly awake from winter, except for a lone quince tree blazing pink alongside a truckstop. 290 is growing. What was once a frontier escarpment of limestone and prickly pear is now claimed property of "Muirwood" and "Oak Haven" and the mycelium of other residential real estate developments. But the road itself is still old. We climb and descend each hill like a motorboat on choppy water, tossed about by the scars of traffic and extreme temperatures on the road, our eyes following the varicose veins of long asphalt-filled cracks in the pavement. Scores of Open House signs are everywhere, in short trains of five or six (per builder) they picket the shoulder. There's a balmy southern breeze and the American flag at the Pulte Highpointe Information Center is at full-mast, waving gloriously. I wonder how many prospective homeowners will visit this trailer today. A part of me can understand how a person would appreciate a home, like the ones I see beyond the trailer, sitting on two green acres and surrounded by white ranch fencing. Perfect for your one-horse family and sidekick goat.
People driving along this road must buy a lot of pottery, rustic metal art and deer antlers; every other store has a side yard filled with chimineas and yard art. Sheet metal silhouettes of cowboys leaning against imaginary walls are among them, so you could (if you wanted to) lean one of those buckaroos against the entrance to your ranch, right there next to the gate. So everyone would know your home was cowboy-friendly, supporting all cowboy-related endeavors.
Damon used to work on the King Ranch. When he was in high school, he had many different roles on the ranch, and his least favorite was the caballero duty of processing freshly-purchased cattle for their new life on the King Ranch. And since he worked during the summers, I'll begin the description of setting to include blistering heat and dust. Add to that, a two-foot layer of bull shit to stand in (and I mean literally), the smell of burnt flesh, the bustling sounds of hydraulics and metal and groaning cattle.
There's a short list of duties to perform on the newly-purchased stock: a bloodbath of dehorning, branding, castrating and immunizing. You corral cow into the chute with a cattle prod. If it's female, the most effective way to move her is to stun her with a cattleprod to the clit (I kid you not). If the cow has horns, you take a large pair of tree pruners and slam, slam, slam them together until the horn lops off, trailed by a river of blood from the marrow (since the horns are, after all, a part of the cow's skull). While the cow is bleeding out, you take a branding iron and burn the famous running W onto its hide (a cow may have many brands over the course of his or her life). Then, if it's a bull, you have to castrate it. It's a systematic thing, really: you slice with a razor blade, pull them out. Period. Lastly, you immunize. If you look up occasionally while injecting, you can pound the huge hypodermic needle accidentally into your own leg, as Damon did. While all of this is going on, the Mexican laborers will take a few testicles and fry them over the same fire that's heating the branding irons, a sort of freak show snacking. And at the end of the day, the laborers will often take a long latex rubber glove, the kind used for artificial insemination, and fill them with the leftover balls to take home. They'll leave, smiling and proud, holding a bloody bag of bluish-pink cow balls to cook up later, for themselves? For their family?
Yes, we are in the middle of country with a capital K, as in Kountry Kitchen, Kountry Klutter and Hill Kountry Kabins. I had to retype these names a few times to get it right. It was difficult.
The river is low. The river bottom is worn smooth, and deep crevasses bore through the bedrock like swiss cheese. I hold my breath as I boulder with Chas in the backpack over deep divides, and gasp when Ford leans over edges, peering into the whirlpools. We stop to investigate fossils, embedded everywhere along the riverbottom terrace.
On our walk back up the trail, I stop in my tracks to listen. I hear a slight symphony beyond our parade of noise: Ford is belting out more White Stripes, while Chas is simultaneously repeating Dvorak's New World Symphony (to the three syllables "Hi Daddy, Hi Daddy," over and over again--amazing in itself!). Everyone stops, and we all hear it, the distant sound of geese underwater. Looking up, we see birds flying in V-formation, due North, but they are clearly not geese. In a less-focused, more carefree jaunt, these are actually Sandhill cranes flying at about 2000 feet. We watched as they flew over the river, paused, and dissociated into a flowing fabric of cranes, wafting upwards on thermals in freeflowing spiral, resting their wings as they ascended. For about three minutes or so they did this, until one set course and the rest followed, straight into V-formation once more.
We learned three new things on the longish return hike uphill:
1. open-toed sandals and sand do not really mix well, according to a 4 year-old.
2. Ford will knock down any structure, no matter how sacred, to prove his power over inanimate objects.
3. Chas will always attempt to get in the water, so never take him out of the backpack without preparation.
Posted by Steph at 11:56 PM | Comments (2)
February 16, 2006
Reason #212 Why Our Dogs Don't Live With Us Right Now
"What the fuck is that?!"
"Oh, shit! Who did...wait, that's just brown Play-Dough. Gross."
Chas arrives at the scene:
"Poo-poo?" "Poo-poo?"
He stoops down, picks it up off the floor and puts it to his mouth, eyebrows tilted. "Poo-Poo?"
Posted by Steph at 06:19 PM | Comments (1)
January 20, 2006
Ben & Jerry
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January 17, 2006
Today I was loaded with anxiety, but my soul was too weary, so what happened was that I stood there in the middle of the house while my head ran around the living room without me. It was really weird. I remember going to the refrigerator several times to meet a wasted, irritable odor. But I didn’t have the discipline to clean it, desperate as my fridge was for a good cleaning. Instead, I concerned myself with keeping Chas out of the kitchen and hoping that Ford wouldn’t look back into his childhood, later on, to discover that his first memory was peeking into a rancid icebox. I thought of solutions to the problem, and none of them were to clean the fridge. The best idea I had was to ignore it another day.
Chas likes Harry Potter, not snuggling up in bed to read a copy of the book but sitting on the edge of the bed watching the movie on Ford's laptop. If I deny his first request, he will continue bobbing up and down uttering "Pottah?" Pottah? Pottah?" until either I give in or he breaks down in a holy shitfit. I blame Ford, who is entirely too influential. Chas will sit, transfixed before the screen, for ten minutes at a time. It's creepy. I know it's not porn, but this bothers me fundamentally. Books have a lot of competition for his attention. At the same time, I can't help chuckle; "BOMBAZAH!" is a very interesting first phrase.
Where I lack the inspiration to wipe diluted bleach solution onto refrigerator shelves, I certainly haven't lacked it in the creative department. And I have Ford as my witness; I found myself telling him earlier this week that 2006 was the year I would be rejected by a lot of publishing companies, but that I'd have dummy (picture) books flying in all different directions, nonetheless. Experience has shown that nothing is final until I've confessed it to Ford. Of course, I had to explain the definition of a "dummy book" to Ford, a rather simple process made difficult and I don't think he ever got over the derogatory connotation.
Posted by Steph at 06:20 PM | Comments (4)
January 10, 2006
Fun Fridays
Friday at Bull Creek. Cattails.
Scientists.
Philosopher.
Thrill seeker. (Fording the frigid stream in mocassins)
Considering Botox.
Posted by Steph at 11:36 AM | Comments (4)
January 05, 2006
The Work of Toddlerhood
Two to twenty seconds is all I have, at each chance, to capture a slice of toddlerhood on paper. I grab one of their washable markers and chubby brushes off the lawn and just go at it. He is distracted by the sprinkler system, I am distracted from the endless cleanup that follows him. Mutual satisfaction. Alas, only two gestures and he's clawing at my brush, pen and paper; his own isn't good enough.
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December 29, 2005
Pho
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December 28, 2005
Self Portrait Tuesday
The Christmas buzz that had us sailing into hyper drive has slowed to a sobering halt, and the quietness in our house is chopped into pieces by the babble of children at play. Here I am, taking a picture of Chas, on the back porch, trying to open the back door. I stand here laughing from the dining room because he has smooching his nose up to the glass, making funny faces at me:
Unintentionally, I took a revealing self portrait today. It's me, the me that I see, the reflection of my children. I see my creativity in the toys I make for them, I see my attitudes in the way I dress them, my discipline in the way I may sometimes remember, but not always, to cut and comb their hair and brush their teeth. I see my self-esteem in the way I keep my house (dirty windows and all).
Perhaps my perspective is just as distorted as the self portrait; in the act of mothering my mind is sometimes so absorbed in the middle of every minute that I lose point of reference, and my closest point of navigation is my limbic tunnel, that impulsive, instinctive maze of motherhood. My rational mind is often in left field. In content imbalance, I'm satisfied. When I put things into greater perspective, I feel so fortunate. Left to calmly breathe and think in quiet, as I am doing now beside that little boy you see above, now in deep slumber, I tend to call upon the more rational part of myself and remember that it's all good, it's all part of the process. Breathe in, breathe out.
Other self portraits can be seen here.
Posted by Steph at 05:47 AM | Comments (0)
December 16, 2005
Gnomey hat
Ford doesn't want to wear this adorable hat made in Noro Kureyon chunky, a pattern from Hello Yarn. It was so easy and quick to knit that I'm going to make more. The pom poms seemed excessive, especially for a boy. Maybe a braided tassle might be fun?
Posted by Steph at 04:15 PM | Comments (4)
December 12, 2005
I Am Not Yet Ready for Christmas
Instead, I am knitting. Clothing is a priority. It's too hard to fit normal pants over cloth diapers, so I have to knit my own. The solution: Little Turtle Knits pants. Noro Kureyon. He seems to like them. These won me kudos from our local knitting shop, where we left only minutes before taking this picture. Not before buying another 3 skeins of yarn for: another pair of pants.
Now, back to procrastination.
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December 06, 2005
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December 02, 2005
Show and Tell
Knitted Little Turtle Knits soaker, Araucania Natural wool, happy model. Knitting is therapeutic and addictive. Like running, once it becomes routine it's hard to miss a day. Then, just as easily, it's possible to quit without looking back. I dropped the needles in May of last year and I'll probably do the same this year. I think it has seasonal appeal, to me.
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November 18, 2005
Week-long Hiatus
Sorry, mom :)
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November 14, 2005
Sunday Sound Quilt
Chas has been playing with words. He watches my mouth pronounce his favorite words, and he is eager to repeat adn repeat:Ball, mamamamamama, dee dee (which means "baby doll" to him), dog, hieeeee (hi), bye-eeeee (bye), bah-bah (basketball), and various barn animal sounds. His favorite monologue is the repetition of the word "hot." He repeats, "Haaaa-Tuh, haaa-tuh, haa-tuh" for himself to hear. He enjoys the way it feels. It's sweet to watch him circle about the house, signing and saying the same word in a happy, meandering trance. It's a layer of music.
The other layers include the IndiePopRocks simulcast, set on low. I think Damon enjoys the living soundtrack. It's mellowing.
And then there is Ford on electric guitar and Damon on Ford's classical guitar. They sit beside one another, playing guitar-babble of their own. Of course, it sounds nothing like babble, but it's the same little dance. They are feeling out for sounds they like. Ford has the advantage of not having to develop and fortify his ego right now; he is at a wonderful stage in his life where these things are already robust. So he sits there, exploring the sounds that he makes without the want to play like another, or sound like another. At this point, it is only sound. It's like learning how to talk; he and Chas are very much on the same page, in that respect.
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November 07, 2005
Wild Child
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November 05, 2005
Chas found a portal, too:
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November 03, 2005
Making Wreaths with Chas
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October 25, 2005
First Big Boy Shoes
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October 17, 2005
Fearless
It's hard having conversations with other parents at the playground when I have to keep eyes on Chas. He is fearless and out of control. Ford and Chas are so different at the playground. Chas' proprioception keeps surprising me; he always seems to correct himself when he starts losing balance; just when I think I have to step in and save him, he saves himself. Mostly. And he has more self-confidence in his physical ability than Ford did at his age.
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October 13, 2005
It's been a good, long day. I'm going to keep staring at these precious feet for a while longer. He will outgrow these shoes within a week, I'm afraid.
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October 11, 2005
MY martini
Trust me, he wasn't thirsty; he's just discriminating.
Which reminds me: Today at lunch, when mom placed a plate of lentils in front of Ford, he shot me doe eyes from the table and fawned, "Aren't we having wine with this?" We laughed at what he might be asking for during snacktime at school a few hours later. Mint-infused sippy mojitos? Icy Kool-Aid cosmopolitans?
School. It has been a very good thing. We start the day with breakfast and either go somewhere for the morning or have fun at home when he's fresh. Then we lunch, read and rest until 3pm, when off we walk to the schoolhouse. When we arrive, he lurches out of the jogger onto the playground, dismissing the teachers and plunging into play. I chit chat with faculty, and leave to run errands with Chas. All the while, Chas is either asleep or restful, engaged and content; it's a lot of fun having the one-on-one time with him. Three hours pass, we return down to the school, and Ford pours bubbly bucketfuls of enthusiasm in my ears. I give him a juice box, we walk home, eat dinner, clean up and read Harry Potter. It really has been that perfect. The best of both worlds: having him home when I'm at my best, having a break when I'm more tired in the afternoon--he benefits from having playpals and square footage when he's his most physically atomic, and time with me when he's most quietly engaged. Way cool.
Posted by Steph at 05:46 AM | Comments (1)
October 08, 2005
Cold Front #2, this time for real
Mom and Dad arrived this evening with a truckful of potted plants from their home in Houston, and with the refrigerated rain they are all perky and ready for me to spend time with them, rearranging them in the garden while Chas chases balls into the street and Ford runs around the yard in the buff. But seriously, when I do get a moment, I'll enjoy putzing around the garden, rearranging them. To distract me even more, the Wildflower Center is having their Fall plant sale tomorrow morning.
I'm beginning to get more excited about the land again. This weekend we will scatter and stomp wildflower seeds around the grounds, tuck a few perennials here and there. Add a totem or two. It's time.
This just in--new phrases from Chas: "All done" (sounds more like "ah-duh" followed by a flinching refusal to eat another bite of food), and "Woof!" He is also less afraid of dogs, but at the same time Clingy with a capital WTF on me. Annoying, but with so many lovely chunks to hold, how can I really complain?
Posted by Steph at 11:06 AM | Comments (0)
September 29, 2005
Chas is no longer satisfied with the way crayons and paints taste; now, he is interested in their use as tools. Fingerpaints are in order, although he tends to dislike using materials and tools in ways that are different from his older brother.
Yet, in so many ways, Chas is very different from Ford. Today I suffered multiple minor heart attacks as I caught Chas atop various perches, each time rescuing him from a fall: The back deck has a seat-railing around the perimeter, and he is able to climb atop the railing and prepare for launch off the other side (and down five feet to impale himself on juniper-cedar bramble). For example.
I am frustrated that we can't pile the kids into the Airstream and drive up East for the next few months. I had more serenity back then: the cabinets were impossible for a child to open, there were no "dropoffs," everything was so...ship shape. Eighty square feet of control. Minimal cleanup. Simple. Irresponsible. So much less baggage than just the two images below, in and of themselves:
The piece of land, our whole quarter acre of it--I'm so overwhelmed with that right now, I can only sit in my car to photograph it, let alone walk up to a rock on site and watch the sun set, or plant a few Cinderella pumpkin seeds in the middle of summer, or place a few good luck totems around here and there. Something about the land is haunting me and I can't put my finger on it. Am I just rebelling? Not enough shade? Too many fire ants? Burrs? Mosquitoes? Slippery kaliche on the walk down? Not enough privacy to enjoy a few minutes of meditation, what with the big peach McMansion next door? I'm disappointed that I'm just not clicking with the property, even though we've had it for a few months, now.
Posted by Steph at 10:45 PM | Comments (0)
September 28, 2005
Chas enjoys nesting. He would remove this Plumeria if he could, that he might better fit into this pot. Other vessels are emptied and sat in: boxes of Matchbox cars, sit-atop dumptruck buckets, frisbees, booster seats, magazines, wrapping paper, board game boxes...
I am returning to painting and using Ford's art supplies when he isn't looking. Thinking of Hamilton Pool, where we immersed on Sunday when it was 107 degrees outside.
Posted by Steph at 04:28 PM | Comments (0)
September 17, 2005
Austin Nature Center
With all the company we've had the past week or so, it has been easy for me to forget what it's like being around Ford, when he is not competing for attention between one or more babies. His enthusiasm, when he is engaged, is really unbridled. Unbridled engagement. That sounds weird.
Today we rediscovered the Austin Nature Center. In May I took the boys there, but we didn't make it past the first tier of exploration; today, we stepped throught the back door and into the rest of the museum. It's such a gem! They have a collection of native animals in the form of a miniature zoo, so the kids can see a coyote or a ringtail or coati or raccoon walk feet in front of them. No annoying cotton candy vendors along the way. It's small, shaded, and in the middle of town. There were several trails adjacent to the animal enclosures that we earmarked for later. Today's focus was the outdoor dinosaur dig.
Ford asked a ton of questions about the Pleisosaur fossil model. "What bone is this, mommy?"
"It's a phalange, but look how many there are on his pointer finger!"
"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,"
I ask "How many are on your pointer finger?" I help him identify them:
"One, two, three.."
"Three! That's not quite as many as the Pleisosaur, huh?"
"Mommy, what's this bone?" Points at some kind of wrist bone.
"That looks like a wrist bone, maybe a metacarpal?"
"Where is my metacarpal?"
I take his hand and poke around towards his wrist, nearly in the same area. "Right in here are several metacarpals. But in your hand, the wrist bones that you feel are actually part of your arm bones!"
"What are your arm bones called?"
"The radius (I point to the bony prominence on the distal radial head) and the ulna (yada yada)."
He lays his hand down upon the "fossil" remains.
Chas kept crawling in and out of the Pleisosaur mouth. He does that a lot. I mean, he's not particular to Pleisosaur fossils, but if there is a cozy nook then he must rearrange the contents so that he can wedge his round bottom into it. He will systematically throw Hot Wheels out of the toybox until none remain in the small box, then squirrel around inside the box like a restless dog until he's comfortable. And then he'll sigh, sometimes clap. And then claps some more. And grunt, smiling. It's very cute.
Posted by Steph at 11:53 AM | Comments (0)
September 04, 2005
I love my dad
But perhaps not as much as Chas. The two of them, they'se like peas n corn.
Posted by Steph at 06:26 AM | Comments (0)
August 16, 2005
pass the kleenex self portrait tuesday
Chas has evolved into this dense chunk of loveliness that stops my heart mid-beat; I have to remember to breathe. I don't know if it's the hobbit-baby hair, long strawberry blonde pouring over his ears and face, or if it's his huge top teeth set a mile apart from each other and opposing two tiny bottom teeth, or his cosmic blue eyes. Or if it's the Proof of God that I see as I watch him sleep, with leaden eyelids. But it's arresting, his presence. Of course, at other times I'm too distracted to sit in awe.
Posted by Steph at 06:15 PM | Comments (3)
August 14, 2005
...
Chas is now walking across rooms. On Friday he began practicing in earnest, stopping only to eat and sleep, but today he feels he has mastered his first footed gait and is scrumptiously sleeping now in his bed, smiling and dreaming and proud of himself. His reddish hair is rumpled around his head, tired and wasted from a day of hustle-bustle, not just from walking but from climbing up and down from Ford's booster seat in the middle of the living room floor. Chas looked like a finicky dog, spinning and adjusting, around and around for fifteen minutes atop the miniature seat, before sitting, sighing and smiling in satisfaction. And then clapping! And then he proceeded to traverse the house once more, clap, and repeat. Again and again. And again. Again. Again. again.
Posted by Steph at 10:42 AM | Comments (0)
August 12, 2005
...
Chas would very much like to walk, minus the falling down part. In the kitchen we were captive audience this afternoon. He would get up, look at us as if to say he'd just been given a $1000 gift certificate to Design Public, step step step witholding breath, then plop halfway surprised before looking up at both of us in pride, clapping his hands loudly and vigorously, grinning and soliciting our applause. At times like this I think he is entirely happy-go-lucky, just riding this whole walk-tease phase out; other times I perceive him as fiercely opinionated, like when I try to rescue my delicate cell fone out of his grasp and am met with the ringwraith scream, eardrums shattered and eyelids peeled back in strain. He's a soft, snuggly bundle of conflicted joviality and frustration.
Posted by Steph at 06:36 PM | Comments (1)
August 11, 2005
...
Ford and I visited the Montessori school at the end of our block yesterday morning. It was poised, pretty, just bubbling with children. They practice strict Montessori method, and I was impressed with the industriousness and self-reliance of a 4 year-old girl as she swept collage remnants with a child-sized broom into a child-sized dustpan. The place glowed with purpose and warmth and Ford (and Chas, for his part) seemed to enjoy it very much. In fact, he didn't want to leave. He was attracted to station after station, wooden baskets and utensils, glowing freshwater fish tank and sunny windows facing the children's vegetable garden.
But there are no openings until June 2006.
This might be our opportunity in disguise to travel this year and shuffle the boys out of the country for a little exploring, while we still can.
I feel as if I'm waiting for Them to come take Chas away. With conflicting travel plans coming from more than three loved ones, I find myself pushing Chas' birthday celebration nearly two weeks following his actual birthdate. Is it so much to accommodate everyone's schedules that they might be able to join us in celebration, or am I reluctant for Time to take away Chas' First Year away from me, with all of the poignant milestones? He's not going to be a baby once he passes his First Birthday, but a toddler. It's not fair that decades of dying are preceded by the short, enthusiastic pant of life in that first year here.
Posted by Steph at 11:51 AM | Comments (0)
July 24, 2005
Bubbly
The Austin Children's Museum hosted "Bubble Day" this afternoon, for which we have been planning to attend all week. There was a special shirt Ford selected to wear, and a priority given to this event over all other appointments, even eating. We left Houston in the rain last night in order not to miss it. And Ford has been talking about it all week, All Week.
The entire visit, Ford whisked among the exhibits like an ER surgeon urgently attending triage, objective and meticulous, testing each demonstration and lingering where he saw fit before moving onto the next interest, oblivious to everyone else but with growing receptivity towards taking turns, nonetheless.
