Thirteen Things about YOUR NAME

1. My name means Irish maiden.
2. My name is also a boys name although I have never seen it spelled Kelli for a boy.
3. My mom thought it would be neat and fun to have a different spelling for my name. She was a hippie.
4. I am not a hippie and did not think it was fun and neat to have this different spelling.
5. Because of #4 I spelled all of my children's names the ways that you would find them on the rulers and mugs in a store, Molly, Sadie, Nora and Jonah.
6. Gary used to joke that my full maiden name sounded like a cookie, the Kelli Crombie Cookie.
7. I really like my name and I love when people call me by my name, especially my husband.
8. During two periods of my life people called me Kelli Ann. When I was a little girl they called me Kelli Ann and when I worked for Bread and Circus people called me Kelli Ann too. It just worked out that way and I liked it.
9. One of my coworkers at B&C called me Kelli Hahn with a british accent which evolved to Hahn which people in that particular Newton store would probably still call me if I walked in there today.
10. For a brief period of time in high school I spelled my name Kheli. My friend Mariclaire told me that it looked like the word phlegm and so I stopped.
11.The names Kelli, Gary, Molly and Sadie are why our last two are names Nora and Jonah (no more eee sound)
12. I have been told I look like a Kelli.
13. My father chose my name.

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Our trip

Some time I'll write about it but for now here are some pictures from it.

Oversleepy snowy morning

Gary and I stayed up too late watching bad TV. We had a few drinks and made a rager (in our house that means a fire in the fireplace that probably breaks some laws somewhere) and talked and talked. It was nice. We had to have the kids to church by 9 this morning so I set the alarm. I hit snooze like a million times and then when I finally got out of bed and looked out the window, low and behold SNOW! and a good amount of it, at least enough to constitute not going to church this morning. Snow day:) We all slept in and then made a nice breakfast and lazed around. The kids were great and it was quiet and sweet. I had signed the kids up for an Ipswich Audubon walk today looking at birds and making a bird feeder and we went back and forth with whether to go. We finally decided it would be a nice idea to get out of the house to the quiet of that sanctuary. It was such a good decision. The kids were all so good and so happy to be bundled up in their snow gear and walking around in quiet peace. Even Jonah was content to walk holding Daddy's hand. Most of the families did not show up so it was just us and one other mom and son and the instructor had remembered Sadie from one of the classes she has taken there. As we were in the middle of the woods looking around for birds a few feet off were three deer quietly walking and eating. They were beautiful and we all just stood there and stared. Later after we made the bird feeders Sadie and Nora and I went outside to hold up sunflower seeds for the birds to come and eat out of our hands. It was so cool to have these little creatures landing on us and eating from us and playing with us. The kids loved it. I loved it. Sadie thought it would be cool to put some seeds in her hair to see if the birds would land on her head and they did! I wish I had gotten a picture of that one. These will have to do.
It was a nice day

Some days are better than others

As the old adage goes and today was one of those days. It was one of those days when I woke up at 6 to meditate and become zen with the universe and my children and my home. I sat for 1/2 hour with a still mind and open heart, praying for people who I don't like and meditating on compassion for all and you know, all that good stuff.
1/2 hour and yet still at 825 when Molly came down to announce that we were "so going to be late!!" I lost all ability at anything remotely resembling zen.
Ugh, it's going to be one of those days.
Lately I have been paying particular attention to my moods. Like why is it that for the most part I would say 70% of the time I am really a cool, calm, collected parental figure. Is it the time in the month, is it the full moon, is it bill time? What is it?
Maybe it's just a bad day. They happen. They happen to my children and in turn happen to me and then it topples like a falling avalanche all around me, the thoughts, the doubts, should I be homeschooling these people, are there too many people, will I get through this day?
I call Gary. That always makes me feel better. I apologize. I come here and sit for a bit. I pray.
These things help me.
Today Sadie drove me crazy, like all day long she was at my heels reminding me of something I am not doing right, asking me for my undivided attention like every single second. I don't have every single second, and that makes me feel bad.
She's a pretty intense kid, that one. She is also the one most like me. Nora looked at me in the kitchen tyring to put away groceries and get Jonah a drink and organize their toys and I don't know maybe 18 other things and she was so matter of fact about it. "Hey, how can I help?" She's five, no strings attached, that Nora. She bounces back from things like nothing. Man, I wish I was like that. Nora was really literally wondering like how she could help me do stuff so that we could then do stuff together like the puzzle she had brought in the room.
I would like to say that I dropped everything and looked at my darling child and said, "Oh, Nora, these things can wait, let's build that puzzle together." and then in that fantasy Jonah quietly plays with his blocks next to us while Sadie composes some amazing piece on the piano.
Reality- I took Nora up on it and had her clear the table. Jonah got in to the new eggs and broke three, Sadie stewed at the table because I was not attentive to her and Molly waltzed through, dumped all her books, shoes and jacket off in the hallway for someone else (me) to pick up later.
Yesterday Molly came down and cleaned the entire downstairs for me, just because she felt like it. Sadie read a book for a good part of the day and the little ones were just easier.
I don't know why.
Until tomorrow.

My mother and step father, John watch the stock market fall like it is a Tues night sitcom, casually eating their snacks and listening to the latest reports. Although they are worried about our economy in a genuine kind of way, they are more worried about other things. Because John has pulmonary fibrosis he is not running around a lot lately and so they sit a lot and watch tv a lot and for some strange reason I think that this bothers me far more than anyone else in the house. They live in the next house (we share a duplex) so it is not like I have to watch tv with them all day but it is the knowledge of them, sitting, watching, waiting. It makes me mad, not like angry mad, like going out of my tree mad. I hate the not being able to do anythingness of the whole illness. I want to change him into some heroic fighter, someone who will go to yoga and get acupuncture and read really insightful books and maybe, oh I don't know, become a Buddhist monk. Do something with his life, his remaining life.
Then I think about myself. Like, what would I do if I were in this predicament. Well, turn back the clock say 13 or 14 years. There is me in my cutesy kiddy pajamas all wrapped up in blankets laying in bed dying. I was 22 or 3 and I had been routinely tested for HIV as part of a physical. Now, needless to say, I had no reason to believe that the test would come out positive but there I lay, dying. Gary had to come over and drag my sorry butt out of bed where I had wallowed for two days.
Real illness.
I'm not sure how I would handle this.
And who's to say that watching TV all day is so bad. Maybe watching the stock market fall is not a good idea but at least he is informed. At the dinner table he always knows the weather and the current events.
Sometimes he looks gray and lately much older.
I feel so sad for my mom and my children.

recent book

Here's a quote from a recent book I have been reading called Your Drug May be Your Problem by Peter Breggin MD and David Cohen PhD:
"Stimulants also affect animals and people in the same characteristic ways. They produce "good caged rats" much as they produce "good school children." The drugged animals, like compliant school children, lost their motivation to explore, to innovate, to socialize, and to escape. Instead, they sit around in their cages performing meaningless tasks, such as repetitive grooming or chewing on the bars."

favorite song

Well, if you want to sing out, sing out
And if you want to be free, be free
cause theres a million things to be
You know that there are

And if you want to live high, live high
And if you want to live low, live low
cause theres a million ways to go
You know that there are

Chorus:
You can do what you want
The opportunitys on
And if you can find a new way
You can do it today
You can make it all true
And you can make it undo
You see ah ah ah
Its easy ah ah ah
You only need to know

Well if you want to say yes, say yes
And if you want to say no, say no
cause theres a million ways to go
You know that there are

And if you want to be me, be me
And if you want to be you, be you
cause theres a million things to do
You know that there are

Chorus

Well, if you want to sing out, sing out
And if you want to be free, be free
cause theres a million things to be
You know that there are
You know that there are
You know that there are
You know that there are
You know that there are
Cat Stevens

Anniversary

Eight years ago tomorrow I married Gary. It was a snowy day and we got married at 3:30pm which meant that as I was walking down the aisle with my weepy father I could see through the window that part of a winter day where the far away sun is creeping slowly down and the night is here somewhere among us. I remember Gary's face as he saw me approaching and how much joy I felt in my heart and my tummy. I remember the guests that we had with us, how we had started out planning a 300 person wedding and quickly condensed it to 50 of our closest friends. I remember their eyes staring at me in my beautiful dress.
I think about some of those people, those closest friends and how between the ages of 27 and 35 friendships can shift and change. Several of the couples at that wedding are since divorced and one of our dearest friends that looked on has since taken his own life. He is like a silent ghost in my reflection, there with me, holding my hand, but somehow far far away. I wish he was still here with us.
I remember that my mother in law and I struggled so much over how everything would be and how everything would look. I hated that then and I struggled with her in such a different way that I do now. Now I have one son, and I understand the love that she had for Gary and I am sure the worry that things maybe wouldn't be good enough for him. I remember I gave her many things to be in charge of partly because she wanted them and partly because frankly, I didn't care. There were few things I cared about that day. I loved picking out my pretty dress and feeling like a Princess for the day. I loved the church we were married in and I loved the people at our wedding. Mostly I just wanted to be there hanging out with Gary. That is all I have really ever wanted to do since I was 21 years old. It's where I am happiest. Sadie or Nora or maybe it was Molly, I can't remember right now, was asking me the other day how I knew that Gary was the right one for me and how come it wasn't maybe a boyfriend I had had before him or something like that. I told her (it was Molly, my memory is now coming to me) that when I met Gary it was like coming home, it was like trying on a pair of pants that fit perfectly or singing in perfect harmony, you just knew it deep in your soul.
When I think about my children and this journey that we are on together and I wonder about their futures. Will they go to college? Will they find a career they love? Will they be happy? Mostly though I wish them love. I wish them the kind of marriage I have today, one that is perfectly imperfect, ever evolving with my best friend. When I met Gary I knew nothing of those other things but I discovered all of those things with him by my side.

Books

On Wednesdays Gary and I do this ridiculous schedule where I work from 8am until 8pm and he has the kids half the day and my mom has them the rest. It is the sacrifice that we make that I do not have to go to work 9-5 everyday, I do two crazy days instead. Usually by 8pm I am so toast it is crazy. I am thinking of anything to do besides come home because alas, the real sacrifice is I have free outstanding loving child care at my disposal but not the best housecleaning experience so my house is always a mess and the children always look like pigpen. The messier that they appear, the more I know for sure that they have indeed had fun.
So yesterday was no different. I finished my notes and phone calls slowly and thought of excuses to stay late so that maybe Gary, who also finishes at 8 will get out a little early and beat me to it.
Damn, I am always first in this race. I am always home just in time to clean and tuck in. Always.
Yesterday I chose to tuck Jonah in.
Jonah is my child who I will be singing and rocking to sleep until he is a grown man, just like that crazy mother in that book "I'll Love you Forever." I love that book. He is my last baby and if he needs me to stay in his room and hug him and sing to him for the rest of my days, I am perfectly willing to do it, really I am.
So I sang him several songs. We sang many Cat Stevens songs getting ready for our next session of FFC. He already knows many songs and loves to sing them with me. It's very sweet.
Gary hunkered down with the girls to read them stories. Usually they pick out a bunch of stories and we read them and cuddle. Gary and great at this too because he loves to make up his own stories which is much cooler. Gary told me later how Sadie looked older to him, how her longer body was eager to curl up in to his arms and how it was hard to completely wrap around her. She is getting older.
He asked them if he could pick out a story and I guess she looked at him hesitantly. She said, "sure Dad, just don't pick out something stupid."
When he told me this story later I thought that she had meant, like stop shoving all that educational crap down my throat at nighttime. Like, no I don;t want to read about the moon and physics for bedtime, read something fun and cool.
She came down for water an hour or so later and I asked her what she had meant by that. She said, "Mom, I meant don't read something stupid, like Clifford or something. I meant read something good, something, you know good."
I thought that was interesting.
Gary ended up reading this really cool book by the author of Mike Mulligan. The book is called "Life Story" and it traces life from the first big bang to the reader him/herself and Sadie apparently approves. There is something relaxing about reading this book. It is repetitive and beautifully written, like a poem.
I rocked Jonah until he was well asleep, drifting off myself, warmed by his chubby boy body wrapped in his bat man feety pajamas, snoring.

Sick

At least two of us has been sick in our home for the last two weeks. On Wed we went to the museum because it seemed we were on the mend but I know it set Sadie and I back. Gary woke up yesterday hacking and Jonah is the biggest baddest mucus as we affectionately call him. Sadie has been breaking out in all sorts of rashes and just when it seemed we would start to be able to emerge from our holiday stupor, we are back here in the house walking around in a haze. I went back to a full schedule at work this week and am feeling those repercussions. Last night in the ER the doc actually talked to me about my health even though she was busy taking care of lots of other sick people. It's a never ending sickness. It is a cough that lasts for weeks, settling so deeply in my throat that I begin to recognize it in the morning. The pattern is so similar too. In the morning I wake up and blow my honker for the first four hours which progresses in to the annoying persistent cough and the almost losing my voice but not quite. Finally at night time, just when it seems I may get some relief I have the dry hacking cough which comes only when I am fully almost settling in sleep, dreams so close I can see them emerging.
I wonder about Grampa John. I wonder about what it feels like to be sick for good. I wonder about what it would feel like to feel this way in permanence, no hope for reprieve.
Two nights ago, I heard him wake up in the middle of the night. I had fallen asleep on the couch watching something stupid for sure. I was in and out of my coughing state but working towards sleep. I could hear him coughing. It was the same cough as mine and I knew instantly that we had given it to him. It was the same cough as mine but it was different. It became louder than my persistent hack, it became louder than the beating in my heart. He had turned on the TV and I knew he was watching it and I wanted to escape into TV land with him, where we could emerge with the Beaver, Fonzie and George Jefferson, a lesson learned and laughter had.

School Vacations

At the beginning of school vacation our house is always a little more relaxed than usual. Everyone else in our community is excited. We must get in on this excitement too. For us, that meant baking cookies on that Friday a few weeks ago and listening to Christmas music and Sadie waiting for the next door neighbor to get home from school.
Watching the kids go on vacation is a joy in itself, running wildly around town, laughing, smiling, high fiving each other, glad to be done for two solid weeks.
This novelty used to last for quite awhile inside me. This year I had maybe three days of excitement before I was ready for them all to go back to school. I wanted the grocery store back, I wanted the doctors office back and I wanted our library back. Last night on the ride home from a very busy day at work, I was thinking about today. What fun thing could we do today? I had made some extra money at work and was in the mood to spend it on some little fun extra thing. I have been meaning to get a membership to the Museum of Science in Boston. We all love going there. Even Jonah flips out over the dinosaurs and the models exhibit they have. We have been offered several times over the last two weeks to go to the museum with friends who are on school vacation but I just could not bare it, even to go with school friends. We have been sick and so we have been inside this house for about a week straight, aside from my venture out to work yesterday and Nora's physical.
I hemmed and hawed about my idea all the ride home and then it dawned on me. Kids are back to school today! The glee in my heart was too much:) We could once again go out and not be surrounded by people the whole trip long, too good to be true. We are going!
Today I am excited to have Gary home for one more day. I start back to my regular work hours tomorrow and that vacationy feel will be gone from our house. The thought of being in Boston together for the day is a joy.
Last night one of the nurses I work with commented to me when I told her that Sadie was still sick. She said that she thought that was the worst because it is right around that time when you really want them to go back to school.
She doesn't know I home school. I got really sad about that. If my children ever do decide they would like school I will really miss this trip we are on together. I know their lives are theirs alone but I would really miss them being here with me.