One of Molly's friends took this picture with her new Pentax that I am secretly seething in jealousy about. I don't know, there is something about this picture of Sadie that is amazing to me.

Jonah at age 4

Jonah will turn 4 on July 5th. To me these last four years have been a whirlwind of change, moving, and growing. Out of all of my children Jonah has blessed me with the most plentiful of moments to explore my own experience of parental anger and displeasure. I have had moments with Jonah that I thought only existed for "those parents". And yet, there they were for he and I to explore and learn together. We are closer as a result. I am grateful.
On the dawn of his fourth birthday I have many thoughts in my mind about him and about the thought that my baby days are over. I watch as other friends of ours begin their families and I wonder at that timeless moment and those sleepless elated days where it feels like there could never exist anyone else in the world aside from you and this new being and the man that helped you create this baby.
And then you blink
and it is gone
just like that, things to do, bills to pay and other children to attend to and then you notice that his baby fat is somehow changing and subsiding and that he will no longer let you call him baby anymore anyhow.
He still yearns for me though, needs me in a visceral kind of way, in a way that only he can. That's ok, I'll take it.
Last night we took the kids down to St. Peter's Fiesta which the first year that we lived here made me think that I should always live here and made it impossible to imagine life without the culture of Gloucester. Every year since it has made me wonder what the hell I am doing here and where I belong in this crowd I cannot place and do not know.
Last night we got tickets for Nora, Sadie and Molly to go on rides but it turned out that Nora was absolutely terrified of rides and that Jonah loved them so off he went on the "Crazy Bus" with his big sister without me.
I held back, close to Gary, looking around at the display, watching people walk around in circles in St. Peter's Square, not knowing this culture that I had chosen to live in.
Jonah got a new set of drums for his birthday and has been playing them for days in a row without avail and he actually makes a really good rhythm with the drums, he has a thing for it. He and Gary go off together and speak that language and I can't believe how lucky I am. I can't believe how blessed I am to have this all, the husband and these children and my life.
Now if I could just freeze Jonah at four...............
I sneak in to his room at night just to get a smell of his head.
It terrifies me that that smell may dissipate over time.

The hulk in me

Sadie sits on the outside looking in. Nora runs to embrace the next moment while Jonah stays close to me. And Molly, self assured poised for her next moment, eternally hopeful for her next move. I'm looking in a fish bowl and watching the world go around, swimming in a sea of ins and outs where some days it feels like I connect and am in my habitat and others I am a visitor. Today I was a visitor and I was not like Nora who ran in to the playground, picked her next friend and started her game.
Today my game should be meaningful. All my moments are meaningful and what does that make the moments that are mundane and more of the same. I have no patience for it. Gary and I met and fell in love under the auspices that we would take over the world. There were people who were petty and did not understand, we called them "taco bell" people. They just talk and talk but nothing actually comes out of their mouths.
I have worked hard to develop patience in this and to foster love and compassion in my children. The mothers in Molly and Sadie's dance classes years ago were these people. They talked about Target like it was some sort of extension to heaven, to Buddha himself, as if you could find happiness in the dollar aisle at the market.
I knitted and by the end of the year the mothers didn't talk to me at all.
Sometimes that is a bummer. I feel like why can't I be more like that? Why can't I fit in with ease? Why is it that I relate to the homeless guy I chat with on Mondays in front of the library better than I do my own friends?
I love that homeless guy. He is slightly smelly and he is sometimes cold and I give him a bite of my muffin and hang on his every word. He understands something that I am trying to get. We only get here one time and I want to get it this time around.
Sadie goes in to a party like a lost deer, starry eyed and confused, finding an activity or some sort of tree to climb.
I look for Gary.
We went to see the movie Up on Monday and it was the love story that my inlaws lived and Sadie told me she would never get married. I agreed, getting married is a big risk to run. You will get hurt eventually. Someday one of you will be lonely for the other. You should plan. You should create networks of friends for yourself so that when you are left alone you will be ok. That is what my mother in law should have done.
But she didn't want to. She fit in with him and I fit in with Gary.
It's really the only place I do fit in.
Sometimes I fit in with the homeschoolers.
Sometimes I fit in with the social workers.
But most times I don't.
David Banner didn't fit in. He had to keep on moving every time he turned green and had an "episode". Too bad he didn't have a partner in crime. A little green lady would have been perfect for him. At least then he would have been able to laugh about all those episodes later and someone would tell him that they are all just "taco bell" people and they could be green forever together.
Sometimes I feel like if I just stopped trying to fit in so much maybe I would embrace my not fit in ness and relish the person I am.

The Incredible Hulk

I have to admit, it was one of my favorite shows as a kid. The Love Boat, Happy Days, The Electric Company and of course The Incredible Hulk. Lately they have been showing old 1970s Hulk episodes on one of our TV channels although I am not sure which one. We have all become hooked. Today when we were driving home from this Optics camp that we spent the last two days participating in Sadie started talking to me about the different kids that she had met and how she went about meeting them and working through some of their many differences. We talked about how important it is in life to learn to work with other people that you like or that you don't like or that you meet in the line at the grocery store or that pull you over for speeding in your car. She tried explaining the rules of four square to me, a child hood game that has always eluded me and I am sorry to say still does. She told me the basic rules to this game that she plays all the time during FFC rehearsal with all of the FFC kids who have become like family to her. In the end she said, "We do a little playing.......... but most of the time we just work through the rules and argue over different aspects of the game until we all agree and continue to play." To some this may seem like a waste of time. In gym class this would have been wasted time. Kids get 45 minutes a week or day if lucky to play gym games and they need to move and have constant fixed rules. At the FFC the kids rule and it is true, although I would not have believed it many years ago, that the kids find rules that are for the most part equitable, respectful and that work for that group at that time. This of course prompted a long discussion about rules and flexibility. More important than workbooks, more important than tests.

I found out today that there is a lot to be learned from that beloved Hulk and we talked about it during and after the show as Jonah stripped naked and practiced his Incredible Hulk moves with Grampa John. The Hulk is in a particular dilemma. Why doesnt he just go get help? What if people found him and tried to cage him up like a wild animal? Would he escape? Would he die? How should we treat people and who can we call on in times of need? Where was his family?

Where was his family anyway?? I think about this a lot, family. You would have thought that somewhere there was a Mrs. Banner missing her large green son. Lord knows I would miss mine, green crazy hair ripped up pants.

Nora told me the other day out of nowhere that she had noticed that there were a lot of mothers who didn't like having their children around them. I have noticed that too lately and it makes me sad. At the doctors today the four of us were sitting there reading a book when a very impatient woman came in scolding her child about homework and just treating him horribly, rolling her eyes at the other mothers and I felt like there was something that they all understood that I didn't.

One thing I have noticed lately is that my son, the Backstrom Hulk, has grown a lot. My baby will be four and all of the sudden I am starting to want to peice together time. I tried to pick him up today and he didn't want me to. He is running through the house in a cape flying past Nora and yelling "Rawrrrrrrrrrrr" all chubby legs and fingers and I want to hold this time in my mind forever, this sweet, surreal magic time of childhood fairies and mysteries and wonder.

99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall

Monday we traveled down to Arlington to practice for our Family Folk Chorale Concert coming up at Faneuil Hall on July 3rd. I am pretty close with the other families who sing with the FFC and most of these families homeschool and so as usual when together with other homeschooling families in June there is much discussion about end of the year reports and plans for Sept. I have been talking with two of my favorite moms about getting together more often next year because our children like spending time together so much and because it would feel nice to be together and feel supportive to me. I need this type of thing.
So as is my way, in mid discussion I start feeling really overwhelmed. Am I not teaching my children enough, are they learning enough, will Nora ever read, will Sadie learn math skills that can get her ahead in life, will Jonah stop beating us up with sticks, am I doing the right thing, do I have enough money to homeschool, and on and on.
Am I ok?
Am I doing the best for my children?
I get lost in the content of the questions, of the concerns and so I have to bring it back to the moment, to the center and the core of what it is that we are doing here in this house. I need to reconnect with our initial vision.
My children happy.
Children learn everyday on their own naturally.
My children believing in themselves.
My children getting dirty and feeling freedom.
My marriage solid, foundation firm.
Loving respectful unions.
Trusting relationships.

We rehearsed and singing is so grounding for me, so back to the basics important for me now. On the ride home, we drove Sophie home. Sophie is a close friend of all of my children's. She lives down the road from us and spends a lot of time with us. In a nutshell we love her.
Sophie is going to school next year and we are all grappling with the changes that will follow this decision. When I have her now I wonder what Sadie thinks and if Sadie wonders about what school will be like for Sophie. I know I do.
We got moving on to our 45 minute drive and just like that one of the girls started singing "99 bottles of beer on the wall" and within seconds we were all singing it. Gary harmonized and the kids took turns singing in big and fanciful funny voices and laughing as Gary lost count over and over again.
When we hit 55 we had to stop, Sophie was hoarse and we were getting tired.
Life is so much more than one part of a whole. My children are getting to live a full life rather than being put in to a catagory or a segment of community. Reaching out in the world farther and farther and then coming home to touch base unconditionally, fervently continously, joyfully.