Out in the garden

It is already the middle of September and a harvest moon rose behind the poplars tonight. The trees are still green, but a hint of yellow is creeping along their shimmering edges.

A year ago I waited for fall the way I counted the days to Christmas as a child. Now Finn is nine months old. He is here with us to celebrate the turning leaves, to taste pears for the first time, to wear a costume and play with pumpkin guts on Halloween. Tonight he stood in the bathroom, holding on to the edge of the bathtub, and watched Oliver play in the water. He holds our hands to walk everywhere, and demands a taste of anything we eat or drink. He crows and claps his hands when he hears music; he tolerates the vacuum cleaner; he cries when I chop nuts in the food processor. He loves to be read to, rides in his stroller with his feet propped up on the toy bar like an executive lounging at his desk, and pets the kitties with glee. When we are out walking and I show him flowers, he gazes at them with great intensity then lets out a little laugh, like the world has offered him the gentlest of jokes. He is not partial to the man who sells goat cheese at the farmer's market. When I pick him up, he plants kisses on my cheeks or chin. He is completely opposed to being on his stomach, and thinks crawling is a terrible idea. He knows Oliver is the funniest thing he has ever seen, and laughs uproariously at his antics, especially when they are in the car together.

And Oliver, my sweet Oliver. "I just turned four!" he tells everyone we see, even now that his birthday is a month behind us. He seems more settled, joyful, a bit more resilient than he did at three. He can swim now, climb trees, help himself to a snack from the kitchen, and carry on a full conversation on the phone. He loves to do science experiments, think of new creations, push the boundaries of his world. He inspired us to coin a new rule: no hanging upside down from anything higher than your head. He remembers activities we did last year at this time and asks to do them again--"Mom, can we go on walk to collect leaves and glue them on paper?" He calls me Mom now, not Mama. We spent over an hour playing board games during Finn's nap today. He sleeps like a rock most nights, wakes sobbing from nightmares occasionally. "I was floating, and then I had the feeling that I was caught." He carries two baby dolls around with him, changes their diapers and nurses them. He was nervous before his first day of preschool, but when the time came for me to leave him he didn't even look up to say goodbye. It takes every ounce of his concentration to remember not to run when it's his turn to leave the circle at pick up time, so eager is he to tell me about his day. He watches old episodes of Mr Roger's and talks back to the screen. He wonders sometimes what Mr Rogers is doing right now, and I tell him I don't know--which is the truth, although not all of it. He want to be called Oliver Mr. Rogers when he grows up.

Back to tonight's harvest moon--I was out in the garden to see it rise, cramming in a few minutes of work between dinner and bedtime for the boys. The chickens pecked and scratched in the bed at my feet, pouncing on bugs and worms as I pulled out the spent corn stalks. I dug carefully to avoid their feet, my mind already thinking ahead to next year's garden, making plans that might be slightly out of reach for someone who still celebrates when she manages to both take a shower and eat breakfast on the same day. Oh well. So my garden grew a bumper crop of weeds this year and my to-do list is gathering dust somewhere. I'm busy watching my boys unfurl their wings, and there's nowhere I'd rather be.

Voice

Oliver found his voice when he was 3 months old. It was a cool November evening, already dark. We were packing for a trip to San Diego for Thanksgiving, and Oliver sat in his bouncy seat and watched us bustle about the house. From his vantage point he kept us entertained with a running commentary of squeaks, coos, and babbles, accompanied by hand gestures and smiles. It was as if a flood gate had opened and the stream of thoughts he had been storing up for his first few months of life came pouring out. And out. And out. After the first hour of talk turned into the next and he was still going strong, I called my parents and held the phone up so they could hear what our formerly quiet newborn had to say.

He did eventually stop talking long enough to go to sleep that night, but that was the start of a conversation that hasn't much more than paused since that day. By the time he was 15 months old he was telling stories, all about cars that zoomed past in the street and diggers that lifted and dumped. Around 18 months I recorded him telling an involved story about a giraffe. He was laying in bed, theoretically trying to fall asleep, and every once in a while he would fall silent for a second or two and I would think "yes! He's out!" but then he would pick up the thread of the story again and keep right on going.

Another mom once told me about her own very verbal boy, a year or two older than Oliver, "some days I just want to open the door, put him out on the street and leave him there for a while so I can have some peace and quiet." Now that Oliver is almost four, I really get where she was coming from, but I love it that Oliver has the verbal wizardry to reveal the vivid wanderings of his imagination. Every time I hear "You know what?" I wait with genuine curiosity to find out what is coming next, and I'm rarely disappointed.

Yesterday, for example, I was pulling the car into a parking space at the grocery store. The space was a narrow one and I missed the angle the first time. As I reversed and straightened my wheels, Oliver announced from the backseat, "God doesn't exist. I think he just appeared for a minute to begin everything, then disappeared again."

"That's interesting Oliver. Were you talking with someone about God?"

"No, I was just thinking it. Another thing is, I was thinking we should buy lots of treats at the store."

I've been thinking a lot about this exchange, and I truly have no idea what spurred his thinking on this subject--creation, that is, not treats. I do know that it's a precious thing to have the opportunity to watch Oliver discover the world. He takes nothing for granted, but grapples with every subject from cement mixers to pirates, tree climbing to the ethics of eating other creatures. It's a gift to have such fierce curiosity and I think it will take him many interesting places in his lifetime. I'm lucky to be along for the ride.

Seven for the seven month old

1. Dinner eaten, applesauce sponged out of your eyebrows and Oliver playing in the bath with Daddy, I took you out to the garden this evening. Wide-eyed, arms reaching, your fingertips brushed the new lettuce, mint leaves, yellow flowers of a kale gone to seed. We tasted an apple, which was not quite ripe, and a plum exploding with juice, and you liked them both. You are opening to the world like one of those flowers, and nothing passes by that you don't want to taste, touch, smell.

2. In line at the airport last week you made friends with harried travelers all around us; when the line moved, you craned yourself sideways to see the man behind us again. You were less happy on the plane itself. So loud, those strange voices coming from speakers all around us, but you found quick solace in my singing, your brother's hand, Daddy's games, and finally curled around me in the seat to nurse. As you drifted into sleep, the drone of the engine and chatter of the other passengers fell away from me. I looked past Oliver, following his gaze out the window. A slice of wing, the sky, bluer than blue, and the endless mountain range of clouds below.

3. So many firsts: First swim, which you met with seriousness, as if you didn't want to miss anything. Your body remembered the water, legs kicking smoothly as I towed you through the pool. Your new shrug--a goofy grin, your shoulders pulled up to your ears. Your top teeth are new, too, hard-won through hours of pacing in the dark, small hours of the night.

4. Restless in the early evening, you call me from my work or reading, eyes wide and lower lip trembling. I lay beside you and your eyes close before my head finds the pillow. You burrow closer. I am getting nothing done, but breathing in your milky sweetness is enough.

5. Every day you wake up happy. When I convince my eyes to open, you smile in delight, then turn over to see if Daddy is awake. Best of all is your first Oliver sighting of the day. Joy!

6. You are learning what you don't like, too, perfecting the Stiff Baby approach to avoiding the car seat, and protesting loudly when something you want is out of reach, or taken from your grasp. "I was eating that book! Give it back!"

7. 2AM in a starlit room, walking you through a restless night of teething, you are so tiny and so heavy all at once. I rest my lips on your fine hair, gauge your readiness for sleep by the rhythm of your breathing. I am too tired to trace a straight line with my feet, but wouldn't trade the weight of your head on my chest for the most luxurious of beds. Sleep will find us both soon. Let the clock hush its ticking now, the earth spin a little slower, the crescent moon pause on the branches of the poplar trees as we make our way towards morning.

Finn at 6 months

Sweet Finn has been here with us for just over six months now. It feels like no time at all since I was oh-so-very pregnant, sipping from that strange cocktail that is the last few days before giving birth: a combination of excitement, anxiety, anticipation, boredom and discomfort. I know I went about my life mostly as usual, shepherding Oliver through his comforting rhythm of meals and play, books and baths, songs and arguments, but my clearest memories from those days are the occasional stolen moments of quiet: pausing over a half-made bed to watch the poplars don their golden coats then let them go, leaves spinning headily across the sky; walking at night under the late-fall stars, footsteps heavy, hands resting on my taut skin; laying in the bath and watching the imprint of a foot appear and then fade.

And then he was here, sea-wet and smooth, already chubby-armed and round faced, and instantly I couldn't remember what our home was like without his sweet, serene presence. "He seems dreamy" my mom said during an early visit, and it's true. He loves to watch the world around him with quiet intensity. His brother or his daddy make the best entertainment, but the bamboo outside our bedroom window tossed on the breeze will do, or a toy held delicately in his hands, or even those hands themselves, examined from all sides, turned, stretched, fingers opened and closed. I wrote a poem a long time ago, more than a decade now, but I think it was about Finn all along. It's called Hands.

Curled spiders
all around the room,
I watch our hands.

We grow older
leave home
find god
leave god.

We hold god
in our hands,
release spiders
into the air.

That's what it looks like when he plays with his hands--as if his fingers are wrapped in an invisible spiderweb and he is pulling and stretching the shimmering strands with absolute concentration and wonder, as if he is playing with the trailing links to wherever he was before.

So Finn sits on my hip, or in the Ergo on my chest, or on the floor and watches his busy family spin around him, and I watch Finn and wonder who he will be at three, at ten, fifteen, twenty three, fifty. Or, more often, I don't--I hold him tight but stay on the move, meeting Oliver's louder needs and the pressing minutia of the day, until a jolt brings me up short and reminds me to slow down and really look at this little one, the little brother, sweet giggler, goofy-grinned guy. I meet his eyes and he gazes back with wholehearted delight.

Born into the role of little brother, I worry sometimes that he will be overshadowed by the joyous, chattering tumbleweed of his older sibling. He is so often quiet, fussing gently to remind me of his need to nurse or be changed, quickly soothed. Pushed too far, though, his wails reach deep into my primitive mother-brain, leaving me incapable of answering a simple question or carrying out a basic task until I have lifted, cuddled, quieted and can breathe again.

He is finding other ways to communicate his needs, too. Lately he has adopted a stuttering chuckle that means "I want it!", and a particular cry when the object of his attention leaves the room. Most frequently heard is his gasp of delight when Oliver appears for the first time in the morning or the 40th time of the afternoon. Daddy coming home at the end of the day is worth a full-body lunge towards the door, whole body smiling, arms held out. And when he wants Mama, only Mama will do, a sentiment conveyed by his laser-like lock on me as he tracks my every move. No complaints here--nothing sweeter than gathering in that perfect bundle of love and want and holding him in the space just over my heart.

Happy half-birthday precious Finn. We are so glad you are here.

Happy Chaos in a Small House

We live in a small house. A really small house--not like those featured in magazines about living in "tiny" spaces, which actually turn out to be 1200 or 2000 square feet. Ours is right around 650 square feet, with a less than perfect layout and lots of "unique" features.

Now, I know that for many, many people in the world, just four of us in a house this size would be considered the height of luxury, and I try to maintain a little perspective. When I get really annoyed at stepping over the litter box to make the bed or trying to shoehorn the clean laundry into over-flowing drawers, I can always make myself feel better by doing one of those carbon footprint calculators on-line and feeling smug about our reduced footprint (not that it's by choice, exactly, but I'll take credit anyway). Other times I pretend I'm in Japan, where we might be rolling up our beds and putting them away each morning.

Showing friends around the place for the first time (which can be done without even moving your feet if you stand right in the doorway between bedroom and dining area/hallway) is an interesting gauge of cultural perceptions. "How will you have kids if you live here?" one friend asked. Obviously that was a few years ago--if he were here now, he'd look around at the toys scattered here and there, the highchair tucked into the corner of the kitchen and the cute car stickers on the walls in Oliver's room and he'd have his answer--quite comfortably, at least for now. On the other hand, friends from Europe didn't blink an eye. This is a perfectly normal sized abode from their point of view.

On my more positive days, I appreciate the fact that having such a small place forces us to be very conscious in our consumption. We just don't have the room to accumulate too much stuff, and anything wishing to join our household has to meet a pretty stringent set of criteria. Do we love it? Truly need it? How much does it hurt when we stub our toes on it? Can it survive the attention of two small boys and two furry cats? What do we want to get rid of to make room for it? We also have a regular flow of bags and boxes to thrift stores and Friends of the Library book sales.

Living here successfully is like inhabiting a large 3-dimensional puzzle. All spaces have to do double or triple duty, and we do a lot of rearranging throughout the day. The litter box, for example, lives between the side of our bed and wall during the day. At night, because the cats drive us crazy with their scratching when we are trying to sleep, and because Alonso needs a clear path from our bed to Oliver's so he can soothe nightmares and bring drinks of water without tripping, the box goes in the kitchen. I start most mornings by sweeping the bedroom to get rid of yesterday's tracked litter (yuck), moving the box into the bedroom and then sweeping the kitchen to get rid of last night's tracked litter. Some people go for a run first thing, others make coffee--I carry dustpans and boxes of cat litter. Fortunately, Finn finds all of this very entertaining to watch.

The greatest challenge of our space is accommodating guests comfortably. I feel bad that they end up on the floor, where the first light of day and Oliver's pleas to get up and play make sleeping in impossible. Our one bathroom can only be reached by going through our bedroom. And meals are eaten perched around the house, cradling bowls of soup on our laps. I like to cook for those I love, and love eating together around a comfortable, beautiful table, but for now I'll have to be happy to gather around our living room rug instead. High on my list of projects for the backyard includes building a patio and investing in an outdoor table big enough to seat a crowd.

The true saving grace of our home is the view from the living room window. The sky is huge, and in the winter we can see across the wide laguna to the hills on the other side of Santa Rosa. We watch water levels rise with the falling rain, and the tall Lombardi poplars arc gracefully in the wind. When spring comes, green explodes over the trees: oak, walnut, apple, plum, each wrapped in a shimmering coat of leaves. Winter and summer alike, birds hold parties on the bare branches and lush crowns and red squirrels argue and race on the rooftops. Their calls drift in through the open windows and the house breathes out, big enough.

Seeing in the Dark

I have a headlamp sitting on my dresser. Technically, it's for camping trips this summer, but it's getting a surprising amount of use right now. In the last 24 hours alone it has helped me:

1) Fish a green plastic frog out from the very darkest reaches of our floor furnace. No, Oliver didn't drop it in there--that would be me. Kind of hard to explain, but I was testing to make sure it wouldn't fit through the grate when surprise! it slipped right out of my fingers. Cue wailing three year old "I didn't want it to go down there!" apologetic mom, the vacuum cleaner, a cat toy and the aforementioned headlamp.

2) Clean up an "oops" from the cats that landed right outside the litter box--in the dark bedroom after Finn had gone to sleep.

3) Trim Finn's razor sharp little fingernails. For a while I could take care of this during the day, but now he just wants to grab the nail clippers too badly, so I have to wait until he is sacked out in a deep sleep.

Who knew? This year's must-have parenting item.

Sweet family day today. Alonso got to sleep in, fly his plane and even play a little guitar. I had a couple of sessions in the garden; staked the peas, planted winter squash, picked strawberries, beat back the blackberries once again--and I napped with Finn, a rare luxury. Oliver got to paint, read books, dig in the sand box, plant seeds, climb the apple tree and ride his tricycle. Finn was pleased to be a part of everything and showed his joy with his happy-bird squawk every time he saw Oliver, the wind in the trees or a chicken.

Late in the day we all walked downtown to treat ourselves to ice cream at Screaming Mimi's. I had a cup with three little scoops--Local Strawberry, Raspberry Swirl and Cookie Break. Oliver finished his fast and then helped me with mine. Finn chewed on Sophie the Giraffe and watched us all eat. Oliver said "Lucky Finn! He gets ice cream milk!"

We are all so lucky to have such full, rich lives. It's kind of unusual to have such a quiet day to ourselves, but all the sweeter for that.

Transformations

When Finn was born, Oliver turned into a giant overnight.

The day I went into labor had been a busy one. Trying to keep myself distracted from endless contractions that seemed unlikely to turn into real labor any time soon and weighed down by the feeling I would be pregnant forever, I went to yoga, bought groceries and contorted myself around my giant belly to remove some way past its prime toenail polish. After dinner I stretched out on the couch, carefully settled on my side, and Oliver snuggled up with me for a few chapters of Winnie the Pooh.Here we are after dinner Saturday, just a few hours before Finn made his grand entrance. I love this picture, even though it's blurry--my last photo of my sweet boy before he became a big brother, before we all jumped off the cliff that is birth and the addition of a new life to our family.


Before lunch Sunday we are home again, but a family of four now. Oliver was so excited to meet his baby brother, although not so excited about his name. He had a lot to tell us about his first night apart from me; how he had been so sad when we left (me too! Leaving him was heart wrenching), how he and Grandma and Grandpa had sat on the couch and told stories for a long time, then all gotten into bed together and gone to sleep; how he had woken up and played, and waited for us to come home with Finn. And then he went on with his day, like he'd been a big brother forever, and having a new baby at home was pretty cool, but would Grandpa play another round of Mechanic, please?

So, Oliver seemed to adjust pretty darn smoothly to this new reality. Sure, there was a bit of a potty regression, and a certain wild glint in this eyes when asked to put on PJs or brush his teeth, and he did manage to get himself trapped behind the bed on my first solo afternoon a week after Finn's birth, just as I sat down to nurse--but overall, he just moved on with his life as if he acquired a new brother every day.

The adjustment for me, and particularly in my relationship with Oliver was a little bumpier. There were some hard nights early on, when Oliver woke and wanted me and Finn woke too and needed me, and I had to leave my crying firstborn in the capable arms of his daddy to tend to my newborn. Most of all, I had to adjust to a new way of seeing Oliver--not just as my baby, but as this big, capable, verbal, smart kid. How did that happen so fast?



Lately, when Oliver tests me (oh, all the time it seems!) or cries hysterically because he needs to sit in my lap when I read to him, but Finn is nursing, or clings to my neck so I'll carry him everywhere around the house, I feel like the other shoe is dropping for him a bit and he is realizing just how big a deal it is to have to share me all this time with this attention-sucking little brother of his.

When I feel impatient, I remember his baby-self--gazing into those deep brown eyes, smelling his milky sweetness, feeling him snuggled up to me all night, and hold him closer now, his long-legged, lean, muscled, grimy, powerful three-year old body leaning into mine hungrily. And then I listen to him tell a tall tale about conveyor belts, cranes, and cookies that ends "Pop! And they jumped right off the belt into our mouths!" and think "How did I get so lucky?"

Playful Parenting

Alonso and I read Playful Parenting by Lawrence Cohen recently. Actually, we read it for the first time when Oliver was a baby and loved it, but now he is three and we actually need some of the tools Cohen describes we thought it would be a good idea to brush up.

The concept is simple: kids act out of a desire for connection. When they feel disconnected from us, they will be harder and harder to deal with until we find a way to reconnect. Play, whether physical or verbal, is a powerful way to proactively strengthen that connection, and locate it when it has been broken.

The book is full of great examples, and it looks so effortless and logical on the page. In reality, of course, it's a lot harder to put into practice when you're just trying to get in the car so you can be on time for an appointment, it's raining, the baby is wailing and the big kid is running back and forth across the living room with both legs in one side of his pants yelling "I have a tail! I have a tail!" When I remember to use them, though, the strategies Cohen suggests can be really effective.

So how does playful parenting look in our house? This afternoon Oliver was collapsed in his bedroom like the cat from Peanuts with no bones--remember how the little girl had to carry her cat everywhere? Well, when Oliver is tired out he gets upset and goes into boneless cat mode. With bonus whining. "I can't do aannnyythiiingg. I just have to lay here forever." He's pretty persistent, and this can go on for quite a while. Funnily enough, ordering him to stop is totally ineffective. Leaving him alone until he gets bored and moves on just seems to escalate things. Threats? Nope. Bribes? Sure that would work, as long as I'm willing to use them for every single thing I ever want him to do. No thanks. So today I gave him a dose of Magic Mama Eyes. "Oliver, I have some medicine to help you feel better. You have to look right at me--I'm going to zap it into you through my eyes." Commence a minute or two of staring into each other's eyes and lots of giggles, followed by small boy miraculously able to play on his own for a few minutes while I got poor Finn nursed and changed. Whoohoo, it worked! It doesn't always, believe me, but when it does it is so very, very sweet.