Take It to the Water

Lately, I have been perplexed about parenting grade-school kids. Specifically, my two third grade boys. There is a new pin-prickiness-- Manny said, "Homework would be easier for me if you didn't yell at me the whole time." This, after I (I thought) spent a half hour walking him through his fraction page, brushing away his eraser crumbs, and generally helping him. There is a new ham handedness--Both boys are knocking things off the counter (like our Venus Fly Trap named Elijah). And at dinner Manny dropped his fork and said, "Ack, I'm so clumsy!" There is a new physical-energy--Daily the living room rug is curled up and shoved under the sofa because they are wrestling with the dog. I mean grabbing by the back legs and swinging her. I suppose it borders on the obscene/animal rights violation borderline. They are no longer the little boys in Rocket Dog jeans that I used to scoop up and lay across my lap to sniff a neck or check a diaper.

Freud would say that they are now in the latent stage. All their Oedipal longings have dissolved into fascination with Lego and torturously complicated book plots. There problems have taken on a Gordian quality: Will I ever get taller? It's the worst when my teacher yells at us for the entire day. I got in trouble again for saying, "Everyone makes mistakes." Will you give me $5 for doing a magic show? Not too long ago, everything could be solved by a good chase around the yard and a crazy-tickling. Or even better, when they asked simply, "Mom, would you just lay with me?"

So yesterday, we went to the Y. And much was made right. It gives me street cred to loan them my triathlon goggles. The 3 of us took to the deep end where there were splash meter contests. Mutual admiration for deep dives. Did you know that Manny can touch the bottom with both hands? Benicio and I were in awe. Also, there was racing. (Let it be known that I totally smoked them.) Like full-length lap races. Ahem. But also, we played this game where we try to tap the other's navel. This involves lots of rolls and big splashy phonix-like ascents above the surface and then laser-like shots for the belly.

But my very favorite was to watch them underwater. Seeing them weightless and blinking and looking at me under water was, how can I describe---breathtaking. I liked looking at the perfect undisturbed water and then waiting until Benicio dived in. He shattered the surface into millions of bubbles and then his form, head-down and kicking was besides being natal, completely riveting. His sinewy arms and still spindly legs pushed at the water. Catching my glance as he resurfaced, he gave me an excellent thumbs up, bubbles streaming up from his smile.

from hibernation central

Right now, there is a game going on upstairs. It is about hibernating. It's an iteration of another game they used to play called Huffy, Puffy, Sleepover. They are wearing long dresses and Calliope is packing things like shoes and money. But this time, it involves packing baskets up. I also see some Fiddler on the Roof influence, where they are bundled up like they are fleeing a gulag.

We saw a squirrel in labor today. That might be part of the influence too. Ask Clara to describe it to you. We heard all this squealing way up in a tree. And there was this enormous bulge from this mama squirrel. It was like she was pacing in labor.

Anyway, just a little scene from here on a windy, spring afternoon.

Dancing for 8 Years

CF: When I grow up, I'm going to have 2 boys and 2 girls. The girls are both going to be named Calliope. And the boys are both going to be named Charlie.

Me: How are you going to know who is who?

CF: The one will have Bakugan, that's how I'll know.

Me: Oh, ok. And what will the other one have?

CF: A mohawk, silly.

Also, she had packed some bags to go hibernating. We asked her to show us what she had packed.

-In this container, I have a little bit of yogurt, of course a spoon for it. Also, this box has some provolone in it. I have some extra shoes, too. For hibernating.

Me: What's in that backpack?

-Oh, that? Just some maracas.

Another conversation she had with Geoff today.

CF: Dad, was I born before or after you got married to Mom?

Geoff: We were married 8 years before we had you.

CF: So you've been dancing for8 years!

Day 8. Pray for Us, Micro Prayers

Pray in thanks for the small things around us that buoy us as reminders of God. Go to bat for us in prayer, with your face to the sun, thanking God for the tiny things.

An email from a friend from college, whose getting ready to give birth.
The ziploc full of signs of spring on the counter.
Benicio's narrative magic trick which involves hail and a cozy bed.

All these things can fit in one hand, and yet they have the unguent and healing effect of a whole pharmacy.

Praises on Day 7

Praises::

::Both boys made Honor Roll. Manny's top grades: Religion and Handwriting. One could argue, what else matters?

::I overheard from the back seat, "Benic, let's make a low cost, special-effects movie. . . "

::Calliope clonked her nose on the barre at ballet and was able to, in the end, pull it together and go back into class.

::On Ridge Pike, near the turn off for Hart's Ln, there's an old barn with a caving roof. Clara pointed it out to me today and told me her plan. Oh my.

::The morning after Manny's seizure, I am laying in our patchwork bed of towels and quilts, after a night of swiss-cheese sleep, I hear Manny's footsteps. I am in disbelief: It must be Geoff. The night before, Manny had a partial tonic clonic seizure complete with the twitching arm, the river of drool, interspersed with profuse vomiting (Did you know that those with Epilepsy are more prone to seizures when they are sick? Oh, mercy!) from the tummy bug that he had. In the post-ichtal state, after a seizure, all you want the kid to do is sleep and sleep. So, I'm half asleep and thinking this is not Manny coming downstairs. But then I sit bolt upright and there he is. It is not an exaggeration to say that I felt like I was seeing the resurrected Lazarus.

The night before, Manny would not speak. Geoff and I were trying to joke with him about his magic show, about the New York accent he can mimic perfectly. But it was repeatedly to no avail. His eyes were locked to the right. I'm going, "I'm the boss' daughter!" like I'm from Queens, with tears in my eyes trying to get Manny to laugh or respond. So when I see him, resplendent in his school uniform, it is like the sun rising in Scandinavian countries when there had been months of darkness. Or like as my Dad describes the submarine ascending to the surface of the ocean and they had to come out on deck and salute. The horrible night had passed, the sickness had swept through him. And now he was fine. And apparently ready for school.

I don't think I'll ever be able to keep up with the ups and downs. One minute someone's in a seizure, someone's blowing my mind with critical analysis of Macbeth, someone is leaping off a kitchen stool and making her own tea, and someone is climbing into the crate with the dog. And they are all under the age of eleven.

Clinging helplessly to the verse, "He gently leads those who have young."

Enough for 2 Days

Prayer Requests 5+6

-Manny had a seizure last night. (The first one since December.)
-Benicio has a rash that is making him look like Rocky.
-Geoff's pain meds that they would help but not TOO much

A song of ascents.
1 I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
4 indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;
6 the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.

7 The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

Pray for Us. Day 4.

The master's-less jig is up. Geoff got his review back from the deans and he either has to find a new job after next academic year or he has to re-apply for this same one, going up against a nation-wide search. The letter came in the mail just when friends arrived and the dog was trying to make out with each of them. He read the letter while holding ice up to his swollen jowls.

Trying to breathe and not lose my cool, as my dad would say. The implications for this ripple out in my mind, concentric circles of worry, concern, entitlement, fighting for his job, sympathy for him, it's endless.

Pray that we could stay in the game, not numb out. There is a purpose in God's timing. There is something God wants to show us in this. Oh mercy.

Pray for Us 3

This morning Geoff is getting his wisdom teeth pulled. Pray for a quick recovery and for the our response to a laid-up Papa. When the Captain is down, the whole crew feels it.

Request-Day 2

Could you hold us in your prayers today for:
-Manny on a field trip to Waldron Mercy Academy. I hate when I can't get to him in a pinch.
-Auntie T's birth will be any day now. Patience for that, an amazing synchronization of events for it to be smooth.
-Nanay and Big Dad are traveling back from their Mission Trip. That flight is brutal.

Prayer Request 1

Dear Praying Friends,

If you are able, please pray that I would be able to outlast my kids with patience. I have all four of them home this morning. "There's a lot of attitudes going around here" as Ash Fox would say. Pray that we will find humor in the face of chaos. That they would enjoy one another.

let's try something different

It is one of my assignments this term--- to ask for prayer. I think it's been assigned because very often people ask us for prayer. And we get into the habit of listening like that, the vulnerable request for an aging parent, a feverish kid, or someone traveling for work. But being in that habit of listening seems to remove me from the pattern of soliciting prayer. Asking for help, guidance, someone to take my request to God. Someone to put it into their own words and point of view whatever it is I place before them. So that's just what I'm going to do on this blog.

I know this blog is not a chronicle of my domestic triumphs after a near-fatal plane crash. Nor is it my vivid handwork as I raise my swelling brood on my organic farm in Maine. My audience is the few folks that seem to stick. Ones that "get" us, know my pattern of intransigence one day and then a fist-pounding call for liberation the next. According to my analytics report, you tend to live near me or be related. So, that means you are close friends. Based on that, I feel it's imperative to ask, of all things, for your prayers.

So, for the next few weeks, I'm going to post a prayer request. A blog post in the form of a request for prayer. Read it, mull it over. And if you think of it, pray for me. I am not to proud to say that I need it.

Now She is 5

How could you have thought there was one person who could make you
Happy and that happiness was not the uneven
Phenomenon you have known it to be? Why do you keep believing in this
Reality so dependent on the time allowed it
That it has less to do with your exile from the age you are
Than from everything else life promised that you could do?
Kenneth Koch

Then again, the first dream could have come
to a woman, though she would behave,
I suppose, much the same way,
moving off by herself to be alone near water,

except that the curve of her young shoulders
and the tilt of her downcast head
would make her appear to be terribly alone,
and if you were there to notice this,

you might have gone down as the first person
to ever fall in love with the sadness of another.
Billy Collins

some overheads of late

If we don't have a sun, the atmosphere doesn't go well---Manny's Classmate, Nazeer

Some of my relatives are Catholic, some are Christian, and some are just regular.---- also Nazeer

Calliope's new tongue-twister:

TWITCHER ME
TWATCHER ME
TORTURE ME

Go ahead and try to say that three times fast!

Words my spell-check does not recognize:
eschatalogical
ungodly
unforgiveness