Race for the Treats…

Like much of motherhood for me, Halloween 2009 has come and gone with a pace that left me breathless, with not even a moment to snap a pic of my trick-or-treaters. So fast that it seems almost like a dream…

My 4th grader (Alien) went off with his friend Sandro (Yellow Power Ranger.) Sandro’s dad wanted to trick-or-treat with his next-door neighbor, a man who happens to have a 4th-grade girl (Hermione).

As you can imagine, the 4th grade girl wanted some girl power to hang out with, so she persuaded two girlfriends from outside our immediate neighborhood to join her (Harry Potter – no gender bias here! And Pebbles.)

Thus, I sent off Aidan to trick-or-treat with a co-ed group of class-mates this year. A first. But parent-driven this time around. Was curious to see how that would play out.

My girls (two witches, again!) hooked up once again with their girlfriends (Lion and Batgirl).

I dropped Aidan off at the Yellow Power Ranger’s house – and then the race for treats began.

Good God those girls were fast! The other two moms quickly fell behind, answering the needs of the younger siblings. There was no way 3 yr old legs could keep up with the swift pace set by the kindergartners.

Throughout the night, I would race past clusters of families that had children who moved at a leisurely pace. I seriously have no idea what that would be like. Since my son (my alien!) learned to walk about 9 years ago, I’ve been bellowing loudly at the top of my lungs, “WAIT FOR ME!”

Such are the perils of bringing three speed racers into the world.

And of course my girls have found friends who can match their speed.

Half-way into the race, we came across the co-ed group of 4th graders – conspicuously missing the two boys. Sandro’s dad wondered if I’d seen the boys. I had seen, some moments earlier, the Alien and the Power Ranger taking a break from trick-or-treating by swinging on swings at the park. Was a relief to realize the boys and girls aren’t yet ready for the co-ed adventure. Glad to see the need for speed is totally missing in that area!

Halloween was fast-paced and furious fun. But over with a rapidity that left me exhausted!

The Sounds of Nostalgia…

Was in my son’s room the other day, and took a good hard look at the CDs on the shelf. Amidst the legos and soccer awards, I was a tad shocked to find Raffi and other baby CDs in his room.

He’s nine now (almost 10), and when we moved here five years ago, I shoved the CDs I’d listened to with him as a baby into his boyhood room. And then forgot about them.

I realized that if his friends saw Raffi in my son’s room, he’d be ribbed unmercifully. So I stripped the shelf of all the baby CDs and a wave of nostalgia swept over me.

The CDs were from the time when he was a baby. When he never slept. When I was a new mom who had no clue about what I was doing. In those long and endless hours of the day, we listened to music together.

As I cleaned his room of all things baby, I remembered vividly when he was my only baby and the sounds of nostalgia grew loud in my head. They were the sounds of Justin Roberts and songs his about nightlights and planets. And Mary Chapin Carpenter and a song about Dreamland. And yes, even the sounds of Simon & Garfunkel. (We actually didn’t play much of Raffi!)

So I drifted back into a dreamland of my own – my memories of when he was tiny and dependent and I realized how swiftly it passes.

Here’s one of my favorites that I used to sing him to sleep back in those early days – Dreamland by Mary Chapin Carpenter:

Sun goes down and says goodnight
Pull your covers up real tight
By your bed we’ll leave a light
To guide you off to dreamland

Your pillows soft, your bed is warm
Your eyes are tired when day is done
One more kiss and you’ll be gone
On your way to dreamland

Every sleepy boy and girl
In every bed around the world
Can hear the stars up in the sky
Whispering a lullaby

Who knows where you’ll fly away
Winging passed the light of day
The man in the moon and the milky way
Welcome you to dreamland

Every sleepy boy and girl
In every bed around the world
Can hear the stars up in the sky
Whispering a lullaby

Who knows where you’ll fly away
Winging passed the light of day
The man in the moon and the milky way
Welcome you to dreamland

Enough Already! I’ve HAD it with Colors!

When I sent my firstborn off to kindergarten several years ago, I was brand new at the whole school thing – and I had two babies in the house.

My son would bring home detailed instructions on what they were doing in kindergarten; one of my babies would cry; I’d drop the instructions and run off, forgetting immediately all information the school wanted me to know.

Thus, in those early weeks, he’d go to school rather ill-prepared – and then come off the bus at the end of the day, crestfallen.

“It was blue day today, mom,” he’d tell me.

Alas, poor child! The green shirt he was wearing was all wrong on the blue day, that special day when all the children in kindergarten were supposed to wear blue (according to the instructions I’d earlier forgotten).

For whatever reason, I remember his early weeks of school as being all wrong – his wardrobe never matched the instructions – because I’d lost them in a swirl of distraction.

Thus, I resolved that when those two distracting babies reached the age of kindergarten, I was never going to fail to put them in the right color!

I didn’t count on the color preferences of my girls to stand in the way.

Who has orange items in their wardrobe? Not my girls – not my pink and purple girly girls.

Who has red? Mine do – but not in an item they wanted to wear today.

The color-coordinated lesson plan has been a headache from the get-go. So enough already with the color stuff. Let’s get them going on the good stuff – like algebra….

Who knew parenthood was mostly about letting go?

Right this minute, as I type this, all three of my children are in grammar school. My girls, my baby girls, are in kindergarten. My beloved first born, in fourth grade.

I’m once again overwhelmed by a parenting milestone. Emotional, and even, yes, a little teary-eyed.

This time around, I did not sob publicly at the bus stop, as I had done when my son boarded the bus on that first full day of kindergarten. He was completely perplexed that a day that gave him such a thrill caused me such obvious sorrow.

As he boarded that yellow bus, I cried. Yes I cried. I cried, not because my son was leaving me, or that I worried about his ability to do well in kindergarten. I cried because my son was going off onto the bus that would take him to the world where I could no longer protect him. I put him on that bus and with him went all the impossible dreams shared by all parents. We want our children to sail easily through life. No tragedies. No missteps. We want our sons and daughters to be beloved by all, to succeed beyond our wildest dreams.

And so they go to school, and that’s why I cried. When I think of school, I remember being inspired by the rare great teacher but I also remember unending boredom at the hands of people who no longer cared for teaching. I remember the cruelty of children towards other children. I’ve sent my children off into that world and I hope I’ve given them the skills they need to thrive, but I worry. One cannot help but worry.

This year, I held it together on Monday, the open-house day, when the parents got to go to school with their kindergartners.

I held it together when the teacher read a poem about the fears parents had the night before the first day.

I held it together yesterday, when my baby girls got off the big yellow bus by themselves, after their first full day in the classroom.

I held it together – and even enjoyed the family back-to-school barbecue last night.

Today, I’m a mess. I’m a mess because I’ve launched my babies into the world and yes, it’s all good – they’re ready.

But I’m a mess because maybe, just maybe, I’m not ready for my obsolescence.

Nearly ten years ago I became a parent, and was immediately overwhelmed by the constancy of my baby’s need. He ate all the time; he slept hardly ever. Between the two, I was literally blown away by how tethered I felt as the mother of a newborn.

Then the twins came, and I was tethered, yes, but used to it by then. I had learned to fit pieces of me into little slices of naptime and other bits of time like that.

And then my son went to kindergarten and my girls went to preschool.

And today, they’re all in grammar school. All three of them are “big kids” now. And my life as the mother of babies has come to an end forever.

Today, I am sad.

Tomorrow I will celebrate this milestone. But I never realized how much of parenthood was learning to let go….

A Summer Retrospective….

It is astonishing that school will start in two days. My baby girls will become big girls, kindergardeners. My first-born will start 4th grade – and we’ll see his tenth birthday before 2009 ends.

As a child, summer was once a lazy season, drifting over me like the white puffy clouds drifted through the blue sky of summer.

Today, summer flashes by faster than Usain Bolt’s world record sprint. Faster than a hummingbird’s wings. Faster than a flash of lightening in a summer storm.

Our summer was fun – filled with activities – summer school, swim team, swimming lessons.

We went to Navy Pier and witnessed the magic of theater and the thrill of the Navy Pier rides.

My son and I went to Great America, where we enjoyed the thrill of the American Eagle.

We went camping on Rock Island in Door County and experienced swimming, a beautiful beach, fishing, the worst storm in two summers and even a snake bite.

Summer flashed by – never boring, filled with events. But when did summer become the swiftest season to pass?

Time Passages…

Seems yesterday we were celebrating the end of the school year.

Now it’s just a couple of weeks before school starts up again.

And my baby girls are now big girls – starting kindergarten in the fall.

How did that happen?

(Nostalgia has me humming some Al Stewart…)

Friends, Facebook and the Absence of Memory

I posted pix on FB recently – and a friend from HS, who I’ve reconnected with thanks to FB, made a comment that my son looks like my dad.

It was an innocuous comment that caught me off guard.

Yes, my son looks very much like my dad. But my father died more than a quarter century ago – and there are very few people I see in my day-to-day life who have any memory at all of my father. He simply does not exist for anyone I’ve met since 1984.

So to have someone note the resemblance my son has to my father is highly unusual. And it made me sad. My son is so very much like my father – but he’ll never really know that because he never got to know my father.

Memory matters. Our memories of people are very powerful. When you lose someone you love, you lose the ability to introduce that person to all the new people who enter into your life as time passes on. My friend’s comment on FB made me realize that my parents, so important to me, are completely absent in the lives and memories of most people I see everyday.

And I realized yet again that the tentacles of loss are very long.

Word on the Street (heard while driving in a van)

My friend related this to me the other day – the conversation of three boys in the back of her van as they were driving hither and yon the other day:

“I’ve got ADHD,” said Boy with ADHD.

“Hmm. We’ve got AT&T,” said Friend #1.

“We don’t have cable in our house,” said Friend #2… “but we’ve got the WII.”

When “Processional” Means “Dance!”

Just have to share this.

What do you think the rehearsal was like for this wedding?

Death in the Afternoon…

Yesterday, at about 1:30 p.m., a woman named Deana Reynolds slipped free of “the surly bonds” of earth and breathed her last breath. Less than a year ago, she was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer called Burkitt’s Lymphoma. Yesterday, the disease killed her.

Deana fought very very hard against an invidious invader. The pain she described since her diagnosis seemed unimaginable. Yet she held on, signing up for aggressive treatment at a hospital far from home. Her goal, always, was to live for her family. Even as the cancer got bolder, she never gave up hope that she would rise above it in the end.

Deana left behind a husband and two small boys. Two boys who are too young really to have memories of their mother. And she left behind her parents who never expected to bury their child.

Cancer is a terrible foe. A most terrible foe. It steals too much from us. I’m glad I participated in a fundraiser for cancer last week. The task – the open water swim – was difficult, but I had been inspired by Deana’s fight – her strength – her courage. She reminded me that giving up is never an option.

Deana also set a powerful example of what it is like to face a terrible challenge with extraordinary grace and strength. And I’ll never forget the sage advice from Deana’s husband, Jack: hug your family today. Deana’s death reminds me that we won’t always have the option.