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spring

We found a funnel webbed spider in our yard today. It was huge and kind of gross and it took us an hour to figure out what kind of spider it was. We had the neighborhood kids in our house looking up all the different pictures on the internet with us and then it was down to being between a wolf spider and a funnel webbed spider but our spider had a web and wolf spiders don't make a web, who knew?
We planted our seedlings finally and started our square foot garden. Ahhh, spring! Beautiful blooming lustrous spring. We played and played in our wonderful yard and all was at peace. Jonah and I drove Molly to work and meandered through Main St. We stopped at the Lone Gull and got a cookie and a cold drink for me and I sipped and he ate as we walked slowly, walking about the birds and watching each other.
Gary and I hunted for poison ivy all through the yard and ripped up several roots and vines. Sadie responded very well to her homeopathic remedy for poison ivy. I am really becoming a believer in this stuff.
Someone passed me on the street and said, "Isn't it nice to have them home this week?" referring to school vacation and I thought, "this is what we do everyday:)"

my children

Nora rode ahead of me, taking off for a friend's house, she didn't even say goodbye. Five years old and so independent and excited to be off with her friends. She is my child, third in the line, she doesn't know anything about school. She never asks about it, never wonders about it, just lives her life. She is my child, the one who gets overheated quickly and hates to wear clothes, the one who adores my husband and has plans to marry him someday. She tells me that I can marry Jonah. She rides off with my friend to spend the afternoon with her and her daughter and she doesn't even look back.
Molly is off in Boston seeing a show with a friend. She is calling me from the train, checking in. She is not looking back either, off to new adventures.
Then I have Sadie who watches my every move. She is my child who asks me where I will live when she is old. She is the one who tells me that she will take that room over there when she is older and we may need her help. She is my child who told me this week that she could not be away for more than one day because she would miss us and there may be monsters out there.
And then there is Jonah. He is my child who is struggling with lots of challenges right now. He is my child that clings to me and I swear would crawl back in if I let him.
All so different and all my children. All special, all loved. I smell their heads at night time and it is like a drug, I could eat them up.

homeopathy

My son Jonah was having a really hard time. He was doing things like throwing himself on the ground and hitting his head on the floor. He was crying so much and struggling. He was obsessing about everything, his shoes, the yard, his shirt color, his toys, my whereabouts, everything. Crying, crying all the time. I was holding him all day. My back hurt a lot and I was frustrated. I think I was pretty much over my head with worry with tiredness and with general confusion. The problem with me these days is that I am so disillusioned with my field that I have lost heart in any sort of helping professional so I was feeling alone with the whole thing which is scary and hopeless. On a dear friend's recommendation we took Jonah to see a homeopath in Cambridge on Friday. I talked to this man for an hour and a half on Wed, crying about little Jonah and my worry for him and my sadness for his suffering. He was kind and compassionate and really listened to me. I thought if this is all I get, this would be enough for right now, someone to listen to me without judgment in a place of love. We took him down on Friday, Gary me and Jonah, just the three of us. We held hands as we walked down Mass Ave in Harvard Square and Jonah was happy to be with just us. We waited for the homeopath, Dan in his little waiting area and Jonah and I read a book. We spent three hours with Dan answering questions about pretty much every aspect of Jonah's life, from what he likes to eat to what position he sleeps in. He covered everything and was an amazing listener. He did this dousing thing with a pendulum, totally out there, way funky for me, not so much for my husband but I am the skeptic of the family. The funniest part was that Jonah laid on Dan's floor and played with a train quietly the whole time, nothing like how he normally is. In the end I paid him and took his remedy and thought to myself out of the whole thing it was worth it to have the day with Jonah alone, to take him out to dinner in Harvard Square and to have been heard in such a way by this kind man, no expectation nothing. We gave Jonah the remedy that night, one dose and that was that.

Today is Tues, four days later. Jonah is a happy guy. Jonah smiled pretty much 75% of the day, had maybe two meltdowns that were quickly remedied with hugs and conversation. Jonah told Molly he loved her and let her hold him anytime she wanted to which is totally out of character for him. He has been sleeping better, eating better, waking happy and playing independently. Tonight when I was singing him songs he harmonized with me for 1/2 hour and then told me he was happy. He said, "I am happy." out of the blue.


I am surprised to report that the little sugar pills helped my little Jonah and baffled as to why. None of it really makes sense which makes me believe in all sorts of other nonsensical things like God and angels and synergy and humanity.
Mostly I am just glad Jonah is happy.

This week I obsessed about all of the things that my kids were not learning in school so here I am going to focus on all of the things that got to learn because they stayed home this week:
1. Everyone got to learn about the life cycle of pin worms, what they look like and how they reside inside of people sometimes. (don't ask why we learned this)
2. The cycles of the moon, pictures of the moon and how pinworms are affected by the moon cycle.
3. Homeopathy, what it is and how it is used.
4. What happens when you mix Baking Soda with Vinegar.
5. Different types of plants and how they grow, watching them grow in our yard and in our home.
6. Sewing through their grammy who has been teaching my two middle daughters how to sew.
7. Several different Ancient leaders who we have been reading about in our Cartoon History of the Universe book.
8. Sadie has learned how to play cribbage with her Grandfather this week and how to play Chess with a homeschool group over the last couple of weeks.
9. Nora has been inspired by one of the fathers of one of Gary's students who teaches drawing at a local college. He likes to draw really scary monsters and Nora likes really scary monsters so she has been drawing them all over the house.
10. Sadie learned how to form a story this week because she wanted to write a story and she asked how to do it correctly. She wrote a great story about swimming and competing with real character formation and great sentence structure then she read it to us all.
11. Sadie and Nora have been reading books on the Revolutionary way because of their trip to see Paul Revere's house recently.
12. Sadie started a soccer program and is learning all sorts of things in that.
13. Nora learned about the fishermen's memorial on a walk with Grammy.
14. Molly learned how to add drop a class and how to manage her time better.

Questions

Sadie rode in the backseat
staring out the window
thinking.
We had a fun day, played with friends, ate lots of food
laughed a lot.
It was dark outside
late again.
Nora says
"I wonder why it gets dark.......
the moon comes up
the sun goes down
why does that happen?"
Molly listens to music
tuned out in the back.
Jonah sleeps.

Sadie is thinking about all this
the fun of the day
mixed in with the dark of the night.
Another night where she will be haunted with worries.
Sadie tells me her worries are like little monsters
and I believe her.
She says she understands now that eventually we all die.
She's seven and she understands that eventually we all die.
I had hoped that maybe I could keep up with the act
at least until 10.
We all live forever
Santa is real
parents never make mistakes
and are always kind
always patient.

Nora tells Sadie
remember when our kitty died.

Sadie asks me what will happen when someone dies.
She is talking about someone but I can't figure it out,
is it her sick Grampy or her old Grampy or is it me
or is it her?
I tell her remember when we had Jonah and he was a baby and everything stood still and we all just held onto each other and watched the miracle of life and birth and sleep deprivation and growth?
I say it will be kind of like that except different.
She asks if she will ever stop crying and I tell her she will.

I tell her the rest of the family will hold each other up.
I tell her I love her.
I wish I could keep her young,
younger than she is
but she keeps growing

and so do I.