the story
July 13, 2011 § Leave a comment
There are beautiful houses, but homes share stories. I admire those who can fill the shell of a house with personality; it is an art form, a language of love. I have been waiting for, passively seeking out, pieces of art for my walls hoping to create such a home. A place of comfort and joy, serenity and inspiration, memories and dreams. Art has always felt very intimate to me and so most of our art are either framed children’s creations or family photographs. Today I bought a simple piece of art that makes my heart smile. This is its story.
My son and I were enjoying a quiet morning together as we sat on a park bench, he with his favorite donut and I with my morning coffee. We watched pedestrians pass and store fronts slowly come to life as we waited for a particular boutique to open. Unhurried and making conversation, I explained we were looking for a gift for his sister’s friend. I neglected to specify. I needed a necklace and it was this search that would lead to the happy discovery, the piece of art that followed us home.
The necklace came before the art and so I must explain. My daughter learned her birthday party was scheduled to coincide with her best friend’s birthday. Mindful that her party not cast a shadow on her friend’s day, she asked me to find a friendship necklace for her friend while she was busy at summer school. This simple request had led me to the boutique, on this morning, with my son as my companion. I was sorting tangled chains trying to decipher the various charms in search of the perfect friendship trinket when my son declared he had found the perfect gift for his sister’s friend. I followed the sound of his voice to the back of the store where he was perched next to a long wooden form, chalkboard black with white stenciled words wrapping its length. He read the words out loud and these words filled the air around us:
you are the cheese to my macaroni you are the horizon to my sky you are the bacon to my eggs you are the laces to my sneakers you are the jelly to my peanut butter you are the smile to my face you are the gravy to my mashed potatoes you are the bubbles to my bath you are the milk to my cookie you are the ink to my pen you are the ketchup to my french fries you are the water to my ocean you are the icing on my cupcake
He read it as printed, rushing from sentiment to sentiment without pause, words filled with whimsy and love. My son saw the plaque as a gift of friendship, but it seemed to exemplify the ridiculously fun, simple, silly, beautiful, imperfectly perfect life inside my home. The bubble baths my daughter lingers in; the laces my son ties clumsily with frustration; summer lunches of macaroni and cheese or peanut butter and jelly; the milk and cookies that signify a stolen moment at the kitchen island before bedtime. I also see the plate of warm cookies and milk from my wedding night and anniversary evenings at the hotel my husband and I were married; the heavy breakfasts of eggs and bacon to ward of the winter chill; mashed potatoes and gravy over declarations of gratitude on Thanksgiving; walking hand in hand with my husband towards our future someplace both familiar and new like the blue of the ocean or a cloudless horizon. Simple and reassuring I see my love for my children and husband as well as their connections with one another and the friends that bring added joy to our home.
Somewhere between family photos and children’s artwork I will find a place for this new, lovely piece of our story.
romance and children
July 11, 2011 § Leave a comment
Gone are the days of lazy preparations for anticipated, romantic evenings out. Date nights are subject to chaotic preparations. Read: clean up the house so the sitter doesn’t think we are slobs and attempt to locate an outfit. The latter is usually the undoing of my last tie to sanity; feeling ridiculous wobbling in heels and an uncomfortable outfit that suddenly feels a bit like a costume.
Evenings in are no more romantic. The soundtrack to alone time a persistent knocking accompanied by questions and thoughts filtered through our bedroom door in an effort to prolong bedtime. This is, of course, assuming I am not asleep beside our daughter after snuggling her to sleep. It feels as if we are hiding from tiny hostages.
So how do you create an everyday space or time as a couple to recapture moments from the beginning of your love story?
party planning
July 10, 2011 § 2 Comments
Both of my children were preemies and so I find irony in my inability as their mother to properly prepare for their birthdays each year. I inevitably turn the calendar casually only to panic at the stark realization that I am predictably unprepared.
I toss around ideas throughout the year, fantasizing about spectacular themes and imagining finely organized, charmingly coordinated events worthy of magazine quality photographs. Time gets away from me and suddenly I am bouncing between retail spaces frantically searching out the images from my mind’s eye. Typically these items are fabrications of wished for items not yet available in retail stores or indulgences at the cost of sensibility that I cannot in good conscience accommodate.
Last week my daughter received birthday party invitations from friends that caused me to look ahead at the approaching month earlier than normal. I was happily reminded of my daughter’s special day and pledged to prepare in advance.
My daughter’s theme provided our first challenge. She began with one idea and then jumped ship. I was slow to swim to shore. Meeting her on different ground, disorganized and unprepared, I struggled to switch gears. As someone who is chronically indecisive I continually endeavor to teach my children to embrace their decisions without fear of remorse. I gave my daughter a choice between her ideas and then let go.
Our second challenge came when addressing our list of potential guests. I worried we had excluded children and began to add names attempting to be inclusive. My daughter’s list, short and sweet, helped me focus; I reminded myself that this day was hers and allowed myself to set aside my own rational. Again, I let go.
As my daughter’s party took form I realized we had begun to create a party that was genuine; composed of friends and activities that bring her joy. I am inspired. My little girl made decisions without remorse and I have fostered a spirit of celebration for the unique soul that lights up my days with her own definitive sense of style.
Preparations void of my own opinions has created an infectious sense of anticipation. Looking to the calendar, I am ready to turn the page.
between the lines
July 5, 2011 § Leave a comment
I set the book aside, knowingly. Days passed and I would greet the title with each dawn, waiting for the right moment to begin. On a cloudless day, beneath a brilliant blue sky, I sat in the shade of my backyard and slowly welcomed old memories between the lines of another’s words. With a lump in my throat and a full heart, I read The Anti-Romantic Child: A Story of Unexpected Joy by Priscilla Gilman.
Our lives have different beginnings, but our stories are hauntingly familiar. We meet in a place of beauty; kindred spirits bound by grace born of love for our children. Two mothers searching for and finding joy in our children’s extraordinary gifts and challenges.
My son, my first-born, was my homecoming. The first time our eyes met my speech failed, but my heart opened in an awakening. Large brown eyes, sage and serene, mirrored my own. Long, thin fingers wrapped around mine and centered me in a place of peace. I fell into contentment.
There were no other children to contrast my son’s development and I was blissfully unaware of heartaches and struggles looming in the shadows of our future. We toiled away hours, days, months, and years oblivious to red flags that would later signal an otherness. Endearing traits would later become cause for concern.
One doctor, with little more than an unsettled feeling, refered us to a child psychiatrist that would see what we had not. Diagnoses and abstract initials hovered heavy, stealing the air from the room as we began to understand our son in a new language. With love and hope we have found our way amidst the endless unknown determined to embrace our son for the special soul that he is.
Between the lines of a stranger’s story I have found strength and inspiration; a celebration for the unique spirits that accompany us on our journey through motherhood.
Please note: This post is my effort to capture my initial feelings as I read this very special book. I consciously did not reference the author’s words but rather my emotional connection to the experience of reading them.
fireworks and forgiveness
July 3, 2011 § 1 Comment
A neighborhood 4th of July party gave me lazy, happy hours among friends and a moment of raw awareness with my son. My guard down, I had settled into the festivities when my eye caught my son’s face. Angry, emotional sparks snapped at the air around him. I drew him to me and guided him to a quiet corner of our guests’ home. Slowly I acknowledge new, painful truths for my son and myself. He isn’t okay and neither am I.
In angry accusing tones my son lashed out at peers for perceived unkindness and at me for not defending him. In fairness to the children, his anger was not born of their behavior. In fairness to my son, I could not give him the fierce defense he sought. We sat, side by side, separated by equal parts pain and grief.
The moment passed and we parted, each resigned to our own hurt. My son withdrew into a space of his own and I let my own frustrations spill in a wave of need to a friend, her compassion allowing me a cleansing release. The remainder of the evening passed without fireworks, but forgiveness for things we cannot control weighs heavy on my heart.
sugar and spice
July 2, 2011 § Leave a comment
It began with a tiny tool belt strung at a sassy angle across her hips. My daughter, face determined, shook her head with frustrated disappointment. No tools. The problem seemed obvious, but my curiosity was endless. I watch my children perpetually lost to their stories. Each new interest is an unexpected introduction to another piece of their personality and I am smitten with their spirit of adventure. As my daughter stood dressed in preparation for a new chapter, I remembered an earlier day.
I secretly wished for a daughter when her life was still a newly formed possibility. My son was an all-encompassing source of joy and I couldn’t imagine another boy. I began imagining a daughter. I daydreamed about a little girl who would scale climbing trees in a princess dress, play in the dirt as easily as host tea parties for teddy bears, and in time I was blessed with a dream come true.
Her character is a complexity of contradictions. Strong in spirit and fragile in moments of uncertainty; kind in moments of compassion and fierce when overwhelmed by frustration. Her room and clothes are the trappings of a little girl, but she plays alongside her big brother. It seems fitting that she would fill her brother’s cast aside tool belt with pink handled tools. Her first project a table and chairs of her own design, doll height and coated in purple paint.
shadow friends
June 29, 2011 § 1 Comment
My daughter and I were walking into swim lessons last night, the angle of the sun casting matching shadows in front of us. In happy tones she declared: Look Mom, our shadows. It’s almost like I am not little and we aren’t just us, we’re friends. The same.
I loved that the sun stretched our time together into something that extended beyond the present into friendship. I wonder if I will ever cease to see the little girl who sleeps like an angel; eyelashes resting delicately on sweetly rounded cheeks. My mermaid in the water, splashing and gliding carefree. Or the class clown, animated with an infectious laugh casting a shield of humor to guard her insecurities. I cannot yet see the young woman in my daughter’s shadow, but I am inspired by the little girl beside me.
hand in hand
June 27, 2011 § Leave a comment
Little things bring me infinite joy; like witnessing my children sharing a moment of friendship. My daughter slipped her hand inside her brother’s and his fingers wrapped around hers in response. A little thing. He could have let go, I would have understood, but he didn’t. I watched them together, heads bent in conversation, with a full heart. Like a child cautiously cupping a firefly, enraptured by the mystical flickering of light in the dark, I held my breath careful not to break the spell.
salute
June 26, 2011 § Leave a comment
As a toddler, my son would salute every soldier he passed; a quiet affection and respect guiding his appreciation. Older now, he has learned to extend his hand and say thank you. In exchange, the soldiers that once smiled and nodded have paused to listen and share.
A road trip to St. Louis landed us in the company of countless soldiers participating in Marine Week. Suspended atop the Arch I noted how the scene below us, soldiers and equipment, bore an uncanny resemblance to my son’s sandbox. On the ground, the larger than life heroes patiently and generously answered my son’s questions, applauded his understanding, and nurtured his interest.
At the conclusion of our visit, one Marine pilot in particular encouraged my son to document his ideas in blueprints. When my son eagerly offered to share his drawings, I noted an endearing moment of affinity. To that nameless soldier, I cast into the sky a heartfelt note of thanks echoing my son’s gratitude.
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