Tonight was the Spring Concert at Nursery School.  The blossoming trees were shedding petals like confetti, on our cars, our feet as we walked and on the heads of our three and four year olds, who on this particular evening, were especially marvelous.  At the first parent meeting I'd ever attended for nursery school, the director, Teacher Kathie, said that this particular developmental stage, we would be able to witness our child's true and shimmering self.  When I heard this, I thought it was some kind of Unitarian cliche, some new age-y warm and fuzzy talk.  However, I think it has proven so true many times over the past two years.  And especially tonight.  

My friend Lisa says that it is impossible to duplicate a child's handwriting, and I believe that it is also impossible to duplicate children's style.  Anyway, I selected outfits that were appropriate to the occasion.  It's they who riff and choose the things that make the outfit noteworthy, e.g; Manny in his pale green Easter chinos and chambray shirt plus his choices of the black bowtie and the safari suspenders put him over the top.  Also, Benici in his madras juggling pants and my brother's bowtie from 1971 with the insistent addition of the corduroy blazer and grey Saucony's.  

Highlights from the show: I can't believe what a sucker I am for processions, especially the sight of my children processing with their classmates down a staircase, I was in tears before the show even began; Benici spotting us in the audience and him licking his lips in order to suppress his smile; seeing him get chosen into the circle center, in the group song where each child is called on to ask what it is they see from the baker's truck.  In song, the child is to respond with some baked good.  The faves were, "I see strawberry shortcake for me, or I see hot cross buns."  Manny was last to be called on and hesitated until he sang, "I see bread."  Also the partner dance when Manny danced with his friend Emma and they sang a welcome song from the Yoruba language.  Seeing them among their peers, their first friends, the ones our family circle opens up for. 

On the drive home, Manny said, "Mom, I have to do my homework tonight."  In a flurry of activity after first getting home, me nursing Clara, Geoff helping Benici with his shoes, Manny found his way over to the dining room table and wrote "EMMAMMMRM" in all caps in purple marker.  I was processing this with Briana, who is my resident objective early-childhood expert.  My question was, "Was my child's first voluntary spelling endeavor the name of a girl?"  Blinking back the possiblity of this reality, she assured me that my question was secondary to the fact that today has been a memorable and important day for him.  And that, not unlike his mother, Manny needed to take stock of it and remember it by putting pen to page and by demarcating it as special. What an amazing life this is, all these possiblities, that
their circle is widening, that Manny may be a writer, that maybe he is connected with Emma, that our baby sons are becoming children, these are painful and amazing realizations.  Us coming to terms with the scope and depth of these shimmering selves.  

DVD Special Futures

Manny has a quote in the quote book at school, "There's a show from BBC that's stop-motion animation."  He just informed me and Geoff that "A Grand Day Out is not on the Special Futures because the robot is too rough with Wallace."  So many times we just look at eachother and have to bite our lip not to laugh.  You want them to just stay that way, four and full of observation.  We just want to bask in their little sayings like "Ahem, I brake your pikin" for "Ahem, I beg your pardon.'  Or "Dignifed that Mist" for King David saying "I'll become even more undignifed than this."  

We've been enjoying the humor of Alexander from Alexander and the Terrible Horrible, No Good Bad Day.  I think it's the first sarcasm they are picking up on.  "Guess whose mom forgot to pack dessert, " it says.  This week I made it a point to pack them each a cupcake with "little coconut sprinkles" so they could be like "Albert Moyo"  in the book.  Benici has taken to holding his forehead out of frustration.  Probably to a fault, I want so much for them to be who they are.  Pure and full of nonsequiturs and quirkiness.  I want them to feel the wind in their sails clearing swiftly  over the sick underbelly of harsh self-criticism, the cacaphony of "WKFKD" as Anne Lamott says.  I want them to always be able to fit into their madras plaid pants sizes 18 mos and 3t aka their Frog and Toad pants aka their Juggling Pants.  I want them to make choices full of certainty and self-possession.   Even if it is making stick-stew in the backyard or looping a jumprope through a bike, a scooter and a plastic tractor.  

She Moves in Mysterious Ways.

Clarita is on the move!!! If I could post them, I'd show you pics of my amazing daughter doing her belly down, Spidey-palmed crawl/drag maneuver that somehow gets her to point B. I wish you could see the determination in her eyes, how she is tenacious and yet not taxed and how always, always, she is moving toward her brothers. I wish you could see her little rosebud tongue, which she uses to explore everything, her little stars for hands that more and more look to resemble her Mema and Aunt Joanna's pianistas. Also, we say her delicious peach-bottom and apricot-kiki. She is my right-hand man, comes along everywhere, to countless nursery school meetings, just tonight to Maternal Wellness Center; she's nursed 500 times in the minivan, at a performance of Lorca's work at the Mandell theatre, on the lawn at Philly U, even going 60 down 95. She is simultaneously the best sport in the family and the diva we all indulge. May she NOT grow up to be Veruca Salt.