What's On Your Desktop?

My friend's blog entry of the contents of her purse inspired this list of what is currently piled on my workspace: teacher evaluations that were due Feb. 16th, my crochet bag (Did I tell you I finished all three scarves?), address labels for birth announcements, a Virgin Mary night light, Fisher Price magnetic letters M, S, W and L, a boot box full of buttons given to me by my eighty year -old neighbor from Duval St, two issues of Baby Bug, Box Set of Gilmore Girls Season 2, my spending notebook whose last entry was February 11th, orange string belonging to a set of stilts, a coupon for a free greeting card, cards from my neices and nephews in Omaha a brochure about the RSV immunization and the thing that holds my ipod when I want to wear it at the gym.

Goodbye Fondue Pot, Hello Blender

With this phenomenal weather, I am getting to switch out the wools and fleeces for the cotton and the linen. We brought the thermoses to the basement, they had done hot-chocolate and vanilla milk duty all winter. The fondue pot from IKEA, which Geoff used for my 30th bday party also is going into hibernation. I am looking forward to all manner of kiddie tipples, fun freezy smoothies, and milkshakes that give purpose to my summers as an ice cream scooper at Mollie's.

We spent the afternoon at Olly Shoes getting amphibious shoes for the boys--shoes that do double duty for scooter-riding as well as prolonged hose-play. I have to make a little pile of extra frocks for Clara as she is quite taken with mud and other messy delights that our backyard offers. I am in love with her little red wellies.

One triumph of the weekend was getting the piano sound-board down from the deck. I think we are offending the sensibilites of our piano-playing friends but we had this idea to use the sound board as sort of a found-art sculpture that happens to be musical. Taking the harp out of a piano and having it in the backyard sounded redemptive to me. It turns out that its kind of rusty and perhaps we may be taking chances with tetanus.

We brought out the summer bedding, Woody Woodpecker pillowcases from my childhood and the softest flannel rose sheets from Geoff's grandmom. The kids have come into the house with bubble-solution stained shirts and their sweaty heads that smell somewhere between puppy and baking bread.

Something to Give, a Song to Sing

Things to remember about our life right now: the way the girls have been napping, nested in like little measuring spoons. When Benici set his load down to go answer the door--one in a set of handmade owls, a gift for the kids when Calliope was born and his favorite film of late-- Superman versus Nature and War (not only nature but war, too. And I love the ampersand, as if nature and war were a pair.) Our nursery school had chicks hatch this week-- the teeny life, cracking through and literally coming out of its shell. Reading the Sylvia Cynthia Stout poem aloud at nursery school and having the kids throwing their heads back in laughter. A visit from one of my best college buds with her daughter this week--lots of great chats.

And this unbelievable quote a friend found inadvertantly while observing a highschool writing class, sent from Anne Lamott:

"This is one of my favorite jokes because the character is so familiar to me. She is probably familiar to a lot of people you know. Maybe she is not ready for the deadness to be killed, or maybe, against all odds, she is. Maybe you can give her something from deep within to find or do or fight for that will break the trance for her. You'll have to find this first within you, though. And then you'll have it to give away. This woman may get to wake up.. And then she will have something to give, a song to sing. Maybe it won't be a song exactly, but maybe just a little tune, a CALLIOPE tune, the tune of survival."

Holy Weak, part 3

The boys are the perfect age for the Tenebrae Service-- the gradual darkness of the sanctuary, the thunderous pipe organ. We went to their friend's church. His parents were married there, this old stone Germantown gem with Bavarian wood carvings and immense and ornate stained glass. The three boys drew and we bribed them quiet with apricots and during the seventeen Scripture readings, m & m's. Ahem. I found it solemn and beautiful, my sleepy sons, dozing with their heads in my lap. One of our babysitters, home from college, gave a performance of "Were You There" that was soul-stirring and deeply grounding at the same time. Also, my Dad exchanging smiles with Calliope on Holy Saturday.

Holy Weak, more pics

I usually hesitate with pics of small cute boys (You never know if Pedophile McPervyson is checking your blog.) but Marcelo's faux-hawk made my day. You can't really tell but it's blue. Below is My Mom's symbolism table-- she painstakingly assembles objects and then the children get quizzed about the significance of what they see. Their scores are tallied and are given prizes accordingly. How's that for catechism accountability? (I was standing behind my kids biting my nails and thinking, "He knows that one!)

Holy Weak

More than any other year, I believe that Christ meets me in my weakness. The strained relationships, the arduous days as a mom, I know God is with me and in me. The frailty and brokenness in and around me are not lost. God promises beauty for ashes, liberation for bondage, and hope for entropy.

Eighteen Months Today

Clara Margot, I was looking for you this morning. The boys were at school. Your baby sis was asleep in the swing. I was trying to pay bills on the second floor. My guesses were: in the bathroom unpacking the hair products and glossing up the mirror pointilism-style OR in the family room trying to eat the cherries from Hi-Ho Cherry-O. When I heard you on the third floor, I dashed up there to find you on the floor of your room trying on shoes. You were maneuvering to kick off your solid soled, T-strap walkers in favor of the pink canvas sandals that tie across the toes in a cunning little knot. They look like something Chrissy would wear on Three's Company. I tried to stay hidden but you heard me laugh and immediately started to ask to nurse.

I know this transition has not been easy. You are still so young. I vascillate between thinking that you are really a big girl, making takeout tea parties in your play house outside, body checking your brothers' friends into the wall but then coming to you in the night to find a fitful baby who can't seem to find her way back to sleep. I also know that I'm not super-consistent about the nursing. Yes, at nap and bedtime but during stories or in the kitchen just for fun, no.

I see you finding your language and it is thrilling. You can say all of our names. You say, "um. . . um" and smack your lips as if to tell a story. When you recognize me during the night, you say, "Hey" like you are Rachel on Friends rather than my baby daughter. I want to savor you as you are right now. I don't want to pretend like you are more sophisticated than you are. Or that you are more delicate than you are. Last week, when you switched to the toddler nursery, one of only two girls among five boys. You held your own on the Sit and Spin and when someone tried to snatch your book, you held it fast and said "no" in a voice that would have made Camille Paglia proud.

When you want to linger on the front porch and unpack the groceries on the steps, I need to be more patient with you. When you insist on peeling your own hard egg, I need to let you. Your alabaster skin and your omniscient eyes take my breath away. You have your Dad's elegant neck and when you turn away, your little gold hoops swing a little. Keeping up with you is my athletic challenge, you climbing the ladder at nursery school, you standing on the kitchen counter. If I have to spend all my days, in pursuit of you, me breathlessly climbing steps to get you in my arms and snuggle you, then baby, I will.

Little C. Free: One Month Old

What a long road this month has been! Dear Little Calliope, happy first month birthday! What do you think of your life so far? Is it everything you hoped it would be all that time you were stewing in my tum? You amazed us with your triumphal entrance that night five weeks ago. With only your head born, we saw you making kissy face. Let it be said, Calliope, that you had us at kissy face. When they examined you, the student midwife kept talking right to you, "Now Calliope, I know this may feel strange, but I'm checking your parietals." She gazed into your eyes and said, "I think you have breast buds." We inspected you, searching for clues, wrinkled skin, overgrown nails-- did we really miscalculate the date? But no, you were pink-perfect and your fingernail-tips looked like they were tucked in to your nail beds, sealed for shipping.

Those first weeks, did you think you descended on a wild household? All the running, the brandishing the foot-stomping! Oh, but you and me, we got our little honeymoon. Rocking with you, watching the faint, toothelss smiles appear on your face then pass by like clouds on a bright day. When people say that infants only smile from gas, I think it's baloney. You really do smile, it is just brought on by your own newborn soulful thoughts. You at the breast for hours, vegging out on my voice tones or the stripes on my jammies. Your eyes fixed on something just above my head, what do you see? Is it angels, as my Mom believes?

Your milky neck smells and your biscuit-y hand smells are my oxygen mask. You may have been my littlest but you have been so steady. Already, you have been on the town. It must be said that I may of jumped the gun on this but how is a mom-of-four supposed to stay home for a whole month? You have been on the red carpet at the Philly Student Film Festival. You have been out past eleven at the Standard Tap. You have been to a political demonstration at Chestnut Hill Hospital. During these times, I will pull you from your sling or someone who has held you will pass you back to me and I worry that you got blanket impressions on your cheek or I fret that I didn't ask someone to sanitize their hands before holding you. But then I get you back in my arms and I see your Sara Gilbert-esque adorable turned-down mouth and your teeny star hands, and you look back at me as if saying, "I'm checking it all out, Mama."

Your entrance into our family rounds us out. You give us the symmetry I crave. Your brothers declare it a national holiday when you are awake. And your big sister has tried to nurse you on more than one occasion. What can I say, to my precious newborn baby girl? We welcome you with our openest of arms and we will stay busy at the work of making this world fit for you.

Forging Ahead in Fits and Starts

When Calliope was first born, I felt this release--we have the rest of life ahead of us! The last time I felt this way was after our wedding-- one chapter closed, a new bold kickass one begins. We've had our babies, now let's get down and dirty with the development-- spiritual formation, discovering literacy, long hours drawing on our tummies on the floor, social consciousness. Yes, I have these glimpses of a vision for the shape our family will take or a new direction to move as a parent, and then the inevitable--I lose my train of thought. I don't mean derailed and then quickly recovered, I mean the entire thought is vanished, gone.

A good friend confirmed this for me last night, this memory loss does not indicate a brain tumor. It is the side-effect of nursing our babies. The combination of the hormones prolactin and oxytocin act as memory erasers. You forget the stress and pain of childbirth, but then you forget your own cell phone number too. Folks ask how I am doing--I answer that I feel like I'm getting back the helm of my ship, finding the family rhythm little more. My dear friend brought me an Americano coffee this morning. I sipped it and made this juicy list about homeschooling. Calliope was in the swing and Clara was playing with her dinos. I was in this state of hands-free euphoria. Fifteen minues later, I'm nursing the girls on the couch and I cannot seem to form a sentence.