If only we could really give this little girl the moon. She would love how shiny and bright it would be!
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Moony
On the way home the other night, Clara chirped "I spy with my little eye something 'moony'!" To which Joe and Ted both responded, "Is it the moon?" Yes. And then she said she wanted to read Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me at bedtime, which we did.
Missing Mommy in Minnesota
Julie has been in the Seattle area for the whole week and we miss her tons. She left two big balloons for the kids to find when they got home from school on Monday. These balloons have been a source of endless fun, stories, and of course, a few tears, all week.
*Before leaving on Monday, Julie bought two bath sponges for the kids and noted that Joe could start taking showers. Well, there was no waiting on this. So Monday night Ted was instructing Joe and Clara on how to manage the shower. Joe had done this before but was still sensitive to the spraying water. Clara took to it quickly and seemed to love having the place to herself and to see water constantly cascading off her hair.
Julie has called each night during prep for shower* time so she would be on speaker phone while the kids danced naked around the big bedroom staring at themselves in the big mirror while answering her questions. And they would end each call by telling her "I love you! I miss you so much! I will hug you and kiss you on Friday!"
Ted and bambini have survived well, perhaps with extra silly discussions at dinner and bed time which winds them up but avoids complaining. This morning we capped off our week with a trip to Starfox before school. Wilbur took the chair Julie would have had. (Clara kept insisting she would get a "crist", and it took Joe to finally decipher she meant a croissant. In the end she picked donut anyhow, maybe because its easier to say.)
Julie returns tonight and we all can't wait to see her!
*Before leaving on Monday, Julie bought two bath sponges for the kids and noted that Joe could start taking showers. Well, there was no waiting on this. So Monday night Ted was instructing Joe and Clara on how to manage the shower. Joe had done this before but was still sensitive to the spraying water. Clara took to it quickly and seemed to love having the place to herself and to see water constantly cascading off her hair.
Big Girl
Clara is desperate to be a big girl, and she is getting closer every day. Last night at dinner she said to Ted: "When I am two years more and I turn into a princess I will live in a castle. And princesses don't like furniture. They just dance." There is a lot of talk about the amazing world that awaits in two years which is the number of years until she is a big kindergartner like Joe. We also may have been encouraging the idea that she will turn into a princess because we tell her things like "if you want to be a princess don't put your hair in your mouth."
And she is often asking Ted or Julie to draw her a princess which she then gives lots of hair, a wand, and fancy shoes.
She also continues to improve her writing and coloring skills. She can make small circles for her "a" as well as color in the lines. She was extra proud of her name this morning.
Clara will make a wonderful princess. . .and in just two short years!
Monday, November 11, 2013
A Letter To Joe and Clara
Joe and Clara,
I'm writing this to you from the plane flying Seattle. You are in Minnesota, though who knows where you will be when you read it. I'm writing it now, instead of when I get home or even when I'm back on the ground, because whenever I travel alone, without Daddy, and the two of you, if I am not entirely convinced that I am going to die in a fiery plane crash, or bloody car crash, or that some other horrific like event isn't going to unfold, well I'm not entirely unconvinced of these eventualities either. I have taken to telling and making your father remember the password to my Hotmail account anyway. He's very good natured about it, which is to say that he makes me feel just crazy enough to dismiss my anxieties and believe I'll see you all again, but not so crazy that he isn't taking my worries seriously. It's tricky business, but he's always up for it which is just one of the many reasons why you should know that you lucked out in the father department.
Still, the plane might go down or, if it doesn't, the car might crash, so I need to be sure I tap all the sap that tends to be running on these trips I sometimes have to take away from you right now.
This post started when I read the following sentence in the new book of essays by Anne Patchett I began on the flight out here: "Sometimes you don't realize what's lacking in life until you find it." Your dad, again--I didn't know what I was missing until suddenly, I wasn't because he had appeared on the scene. But it's the same with the two of you, you see.
I wanted to have children, but it's fair to say that once that pitch was hurtling toward me, about the only thing I wanted to do was duck in terror. (It was no better the second time I was standing at home plate than it was the first.) Of course you shouldn't duck, and I didn't which is how I now know, I had the children I was meant to have.
Joe, I see you. The other night--a night on which I was reading to you and Daddy to Clara--Clara padded into your room to give you a good night kiss, and you made a strangled moaning noise and shrank back from her. I was horrified! Jesus Christ! If you aren't at least friendly with Clara, who are you going to talk to years from now about what a nut your mother was? (Like how she acted like the plane was going to go down whenever she had to travel alone. Daddy and Clara are the only people, really, who are going to get this, and Daddy will have his hands pretty full with said nut, obviously.) But when she padded off, pretty nonplussed by your rebuff, and I asked you why you didn't want Clara to kiss you, you sighed and said you just wanted to read books. And I mean I totally, totally got this. You love Clara sure (duh; she should already know this), but it was time to shut this day down down and read some books. There aren't many days (any?) I don't feel the same way. I see you and I think I feel you, that I get you. But you are your own creature, for sure, make no mistake, and you will think and feel a thousand things I could only ever guess, and only a fraction of which you will ever tell me. I'll settle for that though, and it won't even feel like settling.
Clara, I see you, too. I see you in brief, but intense flashes, flitting around in your flouncy skirts and sparkly tights, talking about something else that's going to happen "when you turn into a princess." Such a confident and flashing whirl you are, with such spirit and heart. I will never forget the moment, in the Raleigh house garage, after I had wrestled you into your car seat in grim determined silence, when you looked at me with your face as red as the moment you were born, and screamed for all you were worth, eyes boring into me. And then it was over. Spirit and heart. You feel everything, or seem to. I see you, and I hope so much that you feel my gaze and know how much my heart loves yours. I believe what other authors have written--that we won't ever fully know the hearts of others, even those closest to ours. So I know there are some make corners of yours that will always be hidden from me and I think that's o-kay. It's got a strong beat that I think I could hear anywhere, which is enough for me.
I quickly realized that when I was terrified of having children, what I was really terrified of was becoming a mother. The two things usually go hand in hand, but they are different things, somehow and, I suppose, can be mutually exclusive depending on what you consider being a mother. Someone once told me that I would be exactly the mother each of you would need. I didn't believe it when I first heard it. I wanted to, but I can't say that I did. But I do now. It's come true, I think. "Sometimes you don't realize what's lacking in life until you find it." The two of you have made me a mother. Sometimes it's SO LOUD I can't figure out how I'll ever have a complete and coherent thought again, but somehow, in all the noise, there you two are, and I see you.
And I'll see you Thursday night. The plane will not go down. The car will not crash. Your father has told me so.
Love you both so much,
Mommy
I'm writing this to you from the plane flying Seattle. You are in Minnesota, though who knows where you will be when you read it. I'm writing it now, instead of when I get home or even when I'm back on the ground, because whenever I travel alone, without Daddy, and the two of you, if I am not entirely convinced that I am going to die in a fiery plane crash, or bloody car crash, or that some other horrific like event isn't going to unfold, well I'm not entirely unconvinced of these eventualities either. I have taken to telling and making your father remember the password to my Hotmail account anyway. He's very good natured about it, which is to say that he makes me feel just crazy enough to dismiss my anxieties and believe I'll see you all again, but not so crazy that he isn't taking my worries seriously. It's tricky business, but he's always up for it which is just one of the many reasons why you should know that you lucked out in the father department.
Still, the plane might go down or, if it doesn't, the car might crash, so I need to be sure I tap all the sap that tends to be running on these trips I sometimes have to take away from you right now.
This post started when I read the following sentence in the new book of essays by Anne Patchett I began on the flight out here: "Sometimes you don't realize what's lacking in life until you find it." Your dad, again--I didn't know what I was missing until suddenly, I wasn't because he had appeared on the scene. But it's the same with the two of you, you see.
I wanted to have children, but it's fair to say that once that pitch was hurtling toward me, about the only thing I wanted to do was duck in terror. (It was no better the second time I was standing at home plate than it was the first.) Of course you shouldn't duck, and I didn't which is how I now know, I had the children I was meant to have.
Joe, I see you. The other night--a night on which I was reading to you and Daddy to Clara--Clara padded into your room to give you a good night kiss, and you made a strangled moaning noise and shrank back from her. I was horrified! Jesus Christ! If you aren't at least friendly with Clara, who are you going to talk to years from now about what a nut your mother was? (Like how she acted like the plane was going to go down whenever she had to travel alone. Daddy and Clara are the only people, really, who are going to get this, and Daddy will have his hands pretty full with said nut, obviously.) But when she padded off, pretty nonplussed by your rebuff, and I asked you why you didn't want Clara to kiss you, you sighed and said you just wanted to read books. And I mean I totally, totally got this. You love Clara sure (duh; she should already know this), but it was time to shut this day down down and read some books. There aren't many days (any?) I don't feel the same way. I see you and I think I feel you, that I get you. But you are your own creature, for sure, make no mistake, and you will think and feel a thousand things I could only ever guess, and only a fraction of which you will ever tell me. I'll settle for that though, and it won't even feel like settling.
Clara, I see you, too. I see you in brief, but intense flashes, flitting around in your flouncy skirts and sparkly tights, talking about something else that's going to happen "when you turn into a princess." Such a confident and flashing whirl you are, with such spirit and heart. I will never forget the moment, in the Raleigh house garage, after I had wrestled you into your car seat in grim determined silence, when you looked at me with your face as red as the moment you were born, and screamed for all you were worth, eyes boring into me. And then it was over. Spirit and heart. You feel everything, or seem to. I see you, and I hope so much that you feel my gaze and know how much my heart loves yours. I believe what other authors have written--that we won't ever fully know the hearts of others, even those closest to ours. So I know there are some make corners of yours that will always be hidden from me and I think that's o-kay. It's got a strong beat that I think I could hear anywhere, which is enough for me.
I quickly realized that when I was terrified of having children, what I was really terrified of was becoming a mother. The two things usually go hand in hand, but they are different things, somehow and, I suppose, can be mutually exclusive depending on what you consider being a mother. Someone once told me that I would be exactly the mother each of you would need. I didn't believe it when I first heard it. I wanted to, but I can't say that I did. But I do now. It's come true, I think. "Sometimes you don't realize what's lacking in life until you find it." The two of you have made me a mother. Sometimes it's SO LOUD I can't figure out how I'll ever have a complete and coherent thought again, but somehow, in all the noise, there you two are, and I see you.
And I'll see you Thursday night. The plane will not go down. The car will not crash. Your father has told me so.
Love you both so much,
Mommy
Sunday, November 10, 2013
All Day Long
On the nights Julie reads books to Clara, after those book are read, Julie lingers and snuggles with Clara. When Julie gets up to leave, Clara always says, "Nooooo. I want you to stay with me all day long." Usually Clara will have one arm snaked tight around Julie's neck when she says this. Julie leaves tomorrow on a trip for work so Birdie's usual seemed especially poingnet tonight.
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