Wolf Moon

Last night I had a dream that I was in my blue and gray nightgown that I wore every night as a child. I was running out of my house and it was one of those dreams where you seem like an adult and you think like an adult but you look just like you did as a child or at least the way  you perceive yourself to look as a child which is often quite different than what you actually looked like.
In the dream I am running  and it is summer just like every dream that I have from that address in East Hartford Ct. It seems like the blizzard of 78 never happened there and I actually never did sled down the hill on Barbonsel Rd because all of my memories exist in that time warp of warm childhood summer days and nights.
And I am running with hair flying all around me and little child legs that can run forever and the reservior where I am not supposed to go alone lay at my back and the park where I spent every day that Mother Nature would allow sprawled out before lay in front of me, clear as a bell amidst darkness.
In the dream I am going to free everybody. I am going to run through the park and across the baseball field and I am going to arrive at Stevens Elementary School and I am going to throw the doors open and let everyone out, no more papers, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks. I am going to watch them as they all run home or to the park or through the field or to the foreboding reservoir to dive in after a shallow fish.
I am going to run to the elderly nursing home and open all the doors there and I am going to start pushing people out and watch as the elderly take to the streets in all of their limitations and crankiness or wild fervor. And  I am thinking about my own Grandmother locked away sitting across from me at a dinner table a few years ago when she was 93 years old telling me never to let anyone tell me what to do as my father told her what to do.
It must have been the full wolf moon but in my dream I am still in my childhood state but I am thinking of my current job where I lock people up and put them away. I categorize their problems and limit their stories. As a profession I can take away freedom. And in my child state I run to let them out.
It must have been the wolf moon because when I swung open the dream like mental hospital door I was standing there with my adult face staring back at me and my adult badge flapping in the wind and my professional outfit on. I looked at me, chubby cheeked child faced me, and me looked back and we both looked down to my feet where I had my running sneakers on

and I began to run.

Dancing through life

This year Sadie learned how to use her body in amazing fantastic ways. Driving to Cambridge every Wednesday, talking and talking and talking some more. Walking through the city, taking in everything there is to see and then entering a dance studio with professional dancers and amateurs all coming together to move their majestic bodies to beautiful music. Today I went and witnessed yet again, the wonder of freedom from school and the coming of age of my nine year old. 

playing with fire

Some fantastic mothers and I have decided to do some experimenting with our inquisitive children around science and the periodic table. It was Sadie's idea and then my idea and now a group of five families and all of our collective ideas. 

Sounds like a good idea, right?

So why am I driving home tonight questioning everything from the scientific method to the dire state of the world to my inability to create enough of something (not sure what) with my children.

Because that is the way my crazy brain works.

So I chatted with my mom. She is, after all, the best mom in my life anyhow and we had a nice cry and then a few laughs and then that was that.

I drove Sadie to the gym for swim team. She didn't really want to go and I told her she didn't have to, in fact we could take a break for a while.

She wanted to go and when she was done was happy for it.

I dragged my butt up to the treadmill who is normally a good friend of mine but today failed me miserably. It's ok, I won't take it personally, another day perhaps.

I went downstairs instead and proceeded to call Ashley and have a good long talk. 

I love Ashley.

Someday I will write a nice long blog entry just devoted to Ashley, my biggest fan, my greatest friend.

On the ride home Sadie was happy, content, talking to me about the time she had seen something on TV where they blew different things up and she wondered how that worked.

I did too.

Sorry, I don't have that answer for you. Ask me anything about literature, maybe drug addiction, child abuse or writing, I am your " go to " girl.

Don't ask me those science questions or you lose me in lack of knowledge and lack of interest. Yawn.

My mother had made stew and we ate it up with glee, all six of us, Nora, Jonah, Grampa John, Grammy, Sadie and me and then just like that there it was, the big EXPLOSION we had been hoping for right in the oven. Huge gusts of flame enveloped the oven and as I ran to get the phone John shut the oven and the fire went out, unsupported by oxygen any longer.

And then we talked about it.

Why did it happen (something about the sugar and juices on the bottom of the oven from pumpkin bread) ? 

Will it happen again? 

Why didn't the fire dept come in our town even though I had called 911 and even though I spoke with someone what if I had been lying? 

What if I needed help? 

Why do they call firemen firemen anyhow? 

Aren't there fire girls too?

Do they get paid as much?

When did they start becoming firefighters?

If I say fireman instead of firefighter will they put me in jail?

How old do you have to be to go to jail?

And on and on it went.

Thank you fire in my kitchen, inquisitive children, caring mother, good friend and an unburnt kitchen.

Bananagrams and what I learned this week

This week I hemmed and hawed away at all of the things that my children are not getting by not going to school. Mental note to self; in the monthes of January and February you (me) pace the floors, toss and turn at night and write lists all around the house about the "S" word and all of our lacks and flaws. So this year is no different, phew.

I found out that we were missing out on the actual physical structure of the school building when I walked Sadie in for her first day of Basketball practice. The girls were all excited to see Sadie. She is a novelty because she does not attend school with these girls and so they are not sick of her and squealed in girlish delight at the sight of her.

I was too busy noticing all of the posters and pretty artwork.

We should be doing more art work, I thought.

We should  have pretty posters, I thought.

"Sadie, Sadie" They squealed.

Practice was fun and we drove home.

It was quiet in my home and I thought about all the friends.

Shouldn't she have more friends around her all the time??

Of course it is 6 pm and most kids are doing homework and Nora is knee deep in clay and Jonah is building something and Sadie is happy as a child on Christmas to curl up with her disabled Aunt to watch The Incredible Hulk.

Homework.

Gary told me this story about a student that he teaches who is so tired from all of his school work and always complaining about staying up late to do it.

He thought, how terrible.

I thought, we should be doing more.

What about all the spelling and the writing and the work that they do?

What if we are wrong?

Can Sadie spell anything??

Today we played a new game called Bananagrams.

It is a pretty fun game where you have to build words fast in a crossword.

Sadie's first word was SEGRAGATE. She was off by one letter, pretty good.

My first word was BRASS and so it went for two hours we played this game over and over again.

I guess Sadie knows how to spell.

In the doctor's office I looked around at all the families.

One woman is quizzing her kid on some science thing.

We should be doing more science.

So I open this really cool book I got this week from my Dad on basically a little bit of everything and start reading off the "important" things, facts, yawn.

Sadie turns away and starts asking me about vacinations and why that sign says we should all get them and we end up in this long discussion about the CDC and the history of vaccinations and somehow Pasteur got in there and by the time our names were called we had come full circle, confused and yet understanding a little bit more.

While I pined over notation and reading music, this week Sadie learned how to play two new Beatles songs on the piano and while I wondered over history we finished the American Girl series and discussed the suffrage movement so much that I had a dream about Susan B Anthony.

My children teach me so much and if I would only step out of their way a bit I may actually teach them a few things too.

Mostly by example.

A smile, a gentle pat and a loving presence.

Songs and Sweaters

For Christmas I knitted Gary this sweater. It took me four months to make it and I put all the love and positive healing energy I could muster in to it. I brought it with me to friend's houses and to church and to children's events and playdates. I pulled it out in the grocery store, in line at the bank and during some of his shows. He never knew.
As I knitted this for him I thought about him. I thought about the time we met and the child that I was. I thought about the time that he thought to kiss me and the time I thought to throw him out of our apartment. I don't remember why.
I thought about the night he asked me to marry him and how we welcomed all of these children in to our lives, together. I thought about crazy angry fighting and quiet times and laughter. I thought about growing up and how I did this with him. It was a joy to make him this sweater and I loved the look on his face when he put it on.
Rewind to two days before Christmas and I am in the Kohl's parking lot picking up some last minute things, a few pajamas for the kids and a beautiful nightgown for my mother and I am sitting in the car listening to "Baby I'm Amazed" by Paul McCartney. I love that song. Gary loves McCartney. He says he wrote better songs than Lennon and I don't know if I would go that far but I do love his ability to write an amazing love song. I am also a huge sucker for the love story of Linda and Paul McCartney.
Anyhow, there I am taking in the last few notes of that lovely song and thinking about Gary and what a wonderful song it is and the female DJ comes on to tell all her listeners matter of factly that if she ever met a man who wrote a beautiful love song like that for her she would drop everything and marry him, no questions asked.
Gary has written songs like that for me.
In fact most of the songs from the last 15 years of his life have been about me, or us or our children.
On Christmas eve he told me to sit and listen to another song that he had written for me and I remembered what that woman had said and I took pause. I dropped everything and married him again.
Life is really that simple sometimes.

Sick

Nora is sick. She started to complain about feeling tired on Monday late afternoon after spending the night with her friend, Sophie. Nora is my child who always knows how to take care of her body. When she is tired, she sleeps. When she is hungry, she eats. When she has had enough TV, she turns off the TV.
Monday she told Gary she was tired at 5pm and was in her PJs, in her bed sleeping within ten minutes. At 10 she woke up, complaining of feeling hot and wanting to sleep in our bed. I took her temp and it was up to 103.
I am so grateful that Gary and I welcome our children in bed with us. Our bed is such a comfort to not only Gary and I at the end of the day, but also to Nora when she is ill, Jonah when he wakes up in the middle of the night and Sadie when she has nightmares.
And sometimes people just end up there, just because.
That is ok with Gary and I.
I remember when I had Molly as a young child and wasn't as cued in to our own family needs and used to worry so much that she would be sleeping with us forever. Now I am free to let these worries go and recognize that this is very temporary and that my children are learning their safe places and how to go out and explore the world with the safety of unconditional regard at the end of the day.
Having a sick child or being sick myself is not one of my favorite experiences but Nora has made this experience so interesting for me. She lets people take care of her so beautifully and knows what to ask for when her body needs it. She spent the entire day in bed yesterday with a fever of up to 104 and when I asked her what she needed, her responses were always something like, "sleep," "a cuddle" or "a Popsicle." I downloaded two books for her to listen to from the library. She listened to "The Linden Tree" which she loved. I wasn't able to listen to the whole thing with her because Gary was playing in Vermont and Jonah and Sadie required a lot of me too but when I asked her about it at the end of the day she told me it was about a family who had lost their mother. She told me that a lot of times I picked out books that were older or about older girls and when I asked her if she would rather listen to something like Junie B Jones, she emphatically responded No!
Now this is interesting to me because at the same time Sadie loves to watch Curious George and read very low level books alongside her Harry Potters and Little Women. My children oscillate in age range and this is nice.
Nora told me that she liked this story and it was nice to listen to.
She told me that one thing that bothered her was the they never told the reader how the mother died. She guessed aloud that maybe it was just old age and then thought about this for a moment and said that that was probably not the reason, "right, mom?"
I told her probably not and then somehow we got on to the discussion of Grampa and I asked her if she ever thought about her Grampa who died 9 months ago and she told me she did......... "all the time."
Today Nora woke up with a fever down to 102 and wanting to watch some tv. I am not feeling well today and so we made plans to shut ourselves up in this room and watch tv and read books and maybe if we feel up to it after everyone else has left for a bit we can paint her dollhouse.
But only if we are up to it.
Nora will tell me if she is up to it and I know she will know.