This weekend we are having a birthday party for Sadie and Jonah for friends. They both have such wonderful friends and everyone is excited to spend time together. Sadie has decided that she would like to have her party at Stage Fort Park and that should be a nice, no clean up kind of party.
Last night when I laid Jonah down is his new bedroom that he shares with Nora, Nora was climbing on my head and I said to her "Jeez Louise Nora, get off my head!" and Jonah thought that was the funniest thing he had ever heard. For 30 minutes as I was laying with him in the dark he would say "Jeez Louise Mom..hahahahah." Then he started laughing so hard he gave himself the hiccups and said, "I laughing so hard I have the hippups."
This morning on the ride to drive Molly to work he took every opportunity to use this expression, "Jeez Louise Dad, drive the car, Jeez Louise Dad say goodbye to Molly."
This morning I woke up late because I worked the overnight last night and Gary and Jonah were sitting side by side downstairs changing their strings.
me "what are you doing there Jonah?"
jonah "Jeez Louise Mom just changing my strings with Dad."

I'm spending the weekend with my two birthday children. Sadie had a wonderful 4th of July birthday with everything from her favorite breakfast to a bon fire and ice cream with just Gary and I to end it all. The 5th was Jonah's birthday. He turned 3. My baby is now out of diapers and drinking from the big boy cups and wanting a real bed instead of his crib. Yesterday we went to Lake Sunopy and Gary and his band played a private party for some old friends of ours and Jonah got to sit in with Daddy and play the guitar and sing with him, that was sweet and surreal. Today I am cleaning my house and getting ready to have my inlaws up for some more birthday celebrating and I am thinking about how life moves on. I filled a big bag with baby toys that no one in my house is playing with anymore to give to the shelter only to be replaced by more toys that my children will receive today. I am coming off of a week of wonder. I wondered about homeschooling a lot this month, I thought about our future and who we are as a family and as individuals. I'm realizing how heavily influenced by people I am for the good and the bad. I am realizing how important it is to decide things that are the best things for my family and my family alone. This is hard to do because at the same time I am realizing how social I am and how much I need community around me. When we went to the parades throughout our town this week I felt somehow separate and alone with the town activities and that felt like a loss. Home schoolers as a group tend to be more independent, more on their own. This is hard for me. I like to be around people, a lot. This doesn't mean that I have decided to school or that I have decided anything. These are just more days in my life, more opportunities to learn about myself and my world. Jonah is naked, running around the house with his lawnmower singing Family Folk Chorale songs. He knows all the words by heart.

Nora on the Great Lawn

The Place Where Robins Play

Beyond the world
of the greatest light
beyond the world
of the fearest nights
There lies a new place
where robins play
and people are so
sweet and kind
It's always divine.

In that place where robins play
it's always divine
Where I lay and go to sleep
and dream of the greatest place to live in
my house.

-Sadie Marie Backstrom age 7

peaceful, like heaven on a Sunday

My husband took tonight off. Ahhh, after several weeks of non stop working and being with the kids, he took tonight off and I can't tell you all how much that means to me. We are going to go to get tea and walk on the beach and just be together and I can't tell you how much that means to me. Sometimes I feel like if things are right with he and I, things are just right with the world. He did not sing with us this session with the folk chorale and our concert is tomorrow and there is just something missing there for me. It's just not the same for me without him singing and playing the guitar with us.
Jonah is naked next to me and the girls have spent the morning looking for crickets and spiders. Sadie and Zack found a whole life cycle, the mom spider, the egg sack and the baby spider. I'm not really sure if it was the baby spider or not but it looked like it could be. They are scratched up knees, sunburnt faces summer kids and I love to hear them and see them this way.
Jonah is still attached to my hip at all times. He is still wanting to be held all the time. My new tactic is to just get myself in the best possible physical shape that I can. I have lost 12 pounds this month and have been exercising a lot, really making it a priority. I feel good, life is much more manageable.
John had a great doctors appt the other day. They told him he was way too healthy for a lung transplant at this time and his breathing has not gone down all year long. He immediately wanted to go camping and go in to the city to celebrate the Celtics. As quickly as things got bad this winter, things are peaceful and good now. I feel blessed and alive, awake and renewed.

The hose

Jonah had waited watching his sisters as they happily sprayed the hose in to our little kid pool in the front yard. He had stood there for some time surveying the process, how to hold the nozzle, where the flow is originating from, what happens to one when one holds the power of free flowing water on a hot summer day. The activities were fun and spontaneous and filled with laughter but there was a full yard to play in and friends to play with so when you are 7 and 5 you quickly dismiss this activity for the next, leaving the hose and all of its promise discarded on the ground.
At first we did not notice, we were playing catch, we were running the weed whacker, we were picking the dandelions until water hit us in the back, on our behinds and then the laughter, the bliss and joy of a little almost three year old standing behind us with the power.
It is not often in our family that Jonah holds the power. Most times we are following Sadie and Molly around to their big kid activities or laughing hysterically at Nora's insanity. Jonah is usually just toddling behind us, cranky in disposition and wanting to be held. But today was different and as Jonah sprayed us we all got behind him. We all understood him. We could see the wonder and the amazement that one hose could have on one little boy. We ran from him and let him chase us down, fully clothed and tools in hand until we all collapsed in a wet muddy heap, laughing and present.

Flying Away

I am about to drive my fifteen year old to Boston Logan Airport to fly out by herself. She is traveling to Texas to see my father who lives there. I am thinking about her body on that plane by herself and wondering if she will feel scared and alone. Although she tells me she is ready to venture off in to the world and I know her well enough to know that she is, I feel sad for her sometimes that I cannot make these trips with her. She asked me on the car ride home if I would be taking her on my own without all the "little kids" and when I answered that I would be "little kidless" she was overjoyed. I felt sad that I didn't have more time with just her. She is growing up so fast and soon she will be wanting to travel longer distances for longer amounts of time. It is hard to imagine her anymore a little girl climbing in to bed with Gary and I to sleep or running through the house with her dolls.
She recently told me her summer reading list which consists of books like "On the Road" and "Naked Lunch", all great books that schooly minded people would consider great literature, good summer reading assignments. She has decided to read them independently just because they are great books. She will not get an assignment from me on the plot or theme of the story, she can relax and bathe in the beauty of poetry on paper. Lately, I have been stealing her books after she is done. I just read "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" which I would argue one the best books ever.
She is traveling to see my father, a man who I did not have a good relationship with growing up. She has wanted to go for some time now so this is no surprise but I still wonder about how it will turn out. I hope that he is good to her and that he can see all the things that I see in her.