My Summer, Unplugged.

Here we go, some parting shots. Calliope at 3 months, her buttery breath and intense gaze. Us berry-picking to celebrate what Geoff told the kids was "the birthday of our family"-- our 8th anniversary.

So, the official beginning of a slower, more deliberate, more checked-in season. The mailman has brought us 4 postcards as part of a dee-lightful postcard swap to bring in the summer. Hurray for good old-fashioned snail mail! In yoga, on Monday, Meredith said, "Our organs are compressed by all the sitting that we do." I have been thinking about this. I need to get off my can when I can.

Calliope and I spent an evening at my neighbor's watching the episodes of "My So-Called Life," tasting possible wedding cakes and eating Machengo and Piave cheeses. Nursing a baby and watching Jordan Catalano was totally surreal for me. A lot of laughing and admitting to wearing flannel shirts with tank tops underneath. Remembering Eddie Vedder's voice and writing for the Talon again.

The summer is in full swing, the local produce is knocking our socks off. We have finally lived here long enough to find a "secret beach" (Thanks to the Incomparable Stephanie!). Clara's gymfoolery. Benici's day camp. Manny's Capoeira. Reading "Nurtured by Love" by Sinichi Suzuki. Anne Lamott's new book is the tall drink of water I have needed.

I wish you long, languid days, where you pass through the heat with composure and hours of puzzles on the cool wood floor.

Visit again when we have new trees on our street (Talk about putting down roots!). When I have a one-kid Kindergarten class underway. When we tone down the messy art-making in favor of a teeny Suzuki violin. Trade some of the action-figure action for some language lessons.

Hydrate, stay loose, nose over toes.

There will be broccoli stems, ramen noodles.

It will be a year ago that we moved into this house. It's the house that when Geoff first toured it said, "Mia, if we have to eat ramen noodles for a year in order to live here, I will." In many, many ways my dream house-- in the city but in the greenest part, a big stead with room enough for a diligent husband to grade papers while a raging toddler can freely tantrum, a kitchen we adore, and a front and backyard that could occupy our weekends for a lifetime.

Anyone I've spoken with lately can tell you that since I have taken over the tasks of finance-management, I think like an entirely different creature. I see our money as a medium with which we demonstrate our priorities, a finite sum we are given the privilege of stewarding. It has been so difficult to curb my appetite for fine things and to apply wisdom to our situation. As part of this effort, we are on our second week of Farm Fresh Express-- a small local company committed to bringing healthy and economically conscienable food to people. You choose from an ever-changing selection of fresh food grown and made by local farmers and artisans. It is rooted in the "no impact" idea, like it's cool if people want to have bananas driven in trucks from California but not on my account. All the food is produced locally and then delivered to your home. I received my first delivery and it was like Christmas. I waited around until this slight, middle-aged woman pulled up in a Prius and muscled two coolers up to my porch. I have to say, the food was amazing-- brown egss with golden yolks, Metropolitan bread with an M stenciled onto the top, the most phenomenal salt you've ever touched/tasted. Anyway, when I cut the broccoli to steam for dinner, you can bet that I cut every last stalk and leaf into the pot. We are not paying $4/lb just for florets, my friend!

Just reading that, I can see how that would look like an inconsistency. But we want to be committed to wise use of resources-- the fuel used to bring food to our stores, the time it takes me to bring kids in and out of the market, and then make those sorts of sacrifices to live out of those convictions. Anyway, we are just trying this out, trying to be a work in progress. We'll see how it goes, but I have to tell you that receiving Lolla Rossa lettuce at your door, it having been picked that day, is just amazing.

loose tooth, lights out

Photos I wish I could up/download for this blog: Baby Calliope's glorious smile-- way more frequent these days and sometimes with accompanying and appropriate laughter. Manny's loose tooth--bottom left, I swear it's the first tooth he ever got. He is very shy about it, though. You can see him discreetly wiggle it with his tongue. Clara's Lisa Bonet-inspired pedicure, turquoise glitter with teeny red jewels on the pinky toe. My sis and I chasing our kids in the backyard, spoon-feeding them at dinner together. Geoff teaching Manny the fine art of the bicycle-kick on the fields at Philly U. Coming back into the boys' room after the whole routine to find them, not only awake but demonstrating a full-on Capoeira sparring match. "Lights out, brothers," Geoff says.

Ask the kids about: the 10 Commandments (They can tell you their faves and why.) Also, what pizza and God's Law have in common. Ask Clara to sing "The Wheels on the Bus." And if you want to choke up, ask the boys to sing verse 3 of "This Land Is Your Land."

Plugged Melon and G Diapers

Okay, I know I said I'd be taking a summer-blog break but one friend is leaving the country at the end of the month and I don't want to "let the wires go dead" just yet. Just wanted a quick post about a few things, free-association style:

Moving Up Day was really wonderful. I told you about how I am such a sucker for processsions: the children processed single-file, down a long aisle in the church and the music teacher played "Pomp and Circumstance." It was too much. We bit our quivering lips and snapped pictures to keep our arms from going weak.

When my old roommate, Katiebird, gave me the "Poor Poet's Cookbook," I don't think she predicted how essential it would become to our cooking life. Anyway, we made the "Plugged Melon" recipe. We made it once on Hyde Park Ave. in Boston. We got a cantaloupe from the Food Not Bombs box at Harvest, took it home. There, Geoff seeded it, and poured rum in it, I think. And then corked it back up and sealed it with a masking-tape X. We refrigerated it over night. The result was cold and delicious. The other night we tried it with this white wine that comes in a neon green box, I got for risotto. Geoff threw the wine in and some of the anemic little blueberries from the bottom of the pint. This time, the result was tart but the melon was ripe and sweet. The blueberries were a really fun addition. In retrospect, the neon wine is best for risotto. Maybe we'll get Lillet or something sweeter.

Geoff described my decorating style as "Ten Thousand Anthropologies." I think this is a good example of how I tend toward poshy excess but have my conscience bound up in the third world plight and frankly just enjoy things that look like they were pillaged from pirate ships. I am at peace with my contradictions. Anyway, I don't consider wear my ecology on my sleeve, generally speaking. But having two little girls in disposable diapers has me really scratching my head. "Oh, the landfills!" I keep thinking. So, Khiet, the closest likeness I'll ever meet to St. Francis, introduced Geoff to G diapers. They're flushable! They have a cloth cover and I have been rotating in cloth pre-folds that we've had since I attempted diapers with Manny back in the day. These are the non-bulky, clean, and rather easy solution we have been waiting for!

Becoming That Mother

I had a boyfriend in high school whose cosmic purpose in my life was to have his mother serve as the example of someone I did not want to become. But someone I was definitely in danger of becoming. Or am in danger of becoming.

This boyfriend was preparing to start college later that summer. His mother reminded him to nap in the afternoon. She plated his food for three meals. They were having stones in their front-walk relaid and made him sit and watch the masons for a physics lesson.

She phoned the Booster Club chair-person ahead of time to make sure that her family had good seating at the Sports Banquet. She had his NHS stole professionally pressed. She squabbled with the art teachers over which hallway his pottery should be displayed.

I can count on one hand how many times I have thought of the boyfriend. Yet I think of his mother at least once a week. Especially at the beginning of a week like ours: Alumni Auction, Moving Up Ceremony, Signups for Private Violin Lessons, even teaching Children's Church. I walk that fine line between loving and serving my children and masterminding their status to a very sick end. I want to mother my children well, hoping they'll be successful. Yet, I am tempted always to be angling for their success in a way that I think is manipulative and unhealthy.

This boyfriend's mother looms in my mind. I hear myself sometimes and think I resemble her, petite and polite but imperious and curt. She was perfunctorily polite but talked to her husband through her teeth. Her home was tasteful and groomed-- Delft pottery a big friendly dog of pure breeding. All of her ethnic features were country-clubbed into submission. I think of her now because she perplexes me. She was complex-- she was raising a really confident son with a very agile mind. He was creative and funny. He was happy, which was not common for a high school boy, at least in my experience.

So what I wonder now-- was she right? She had her hand in everything. I, on the other hand, am used to a big family--we invited our parents to our ceremonies and our games. Our parents had careers. My brother describes their style as "benign neglect." Our parents were macro-minded. I remember fighting with my mom, "What is this hockey-hockey business?" she asked after I'd been at an all-day field hockey tournament. They took our successes with gratitude, grace and humor. Having chosen to be home with my kids, I am looking for a way of being involved micro-mindedly but in a way that does not make me into that boyfriend's mother. I guess I know the answer I'm looking for, sane balance. Fighting that ivy-hungry paradigm. Being self-suspicious about what success means.

That boyfriend, with his Sampras-esque armspan, had in many ways what I would like for my kids-superficially, anyway. His mother had sterling intentions--let's have you travel, let's expose you to art and let's offer you a chance at some cool colleges. I think I can bring those opportunities to my kids. I just want to be honest about how this exposes my hunger for status. She stands out in my mind because she was aggressive and explicit about what she wanted for her son. As my kids grow up, I think it would be good to be explicit about it but just to be authentic as possible.