Learning to Read

I've been ligging around the couch for the past three months, so extraordinarily tired and a bit ill.  Poor Violet, on the days when she's not in preschool, or doing ballet or soccer, she's stuck at home with her slug mom.  

But little people tend to be resourceful.  Yesterday she built a juicer out of tupperware, and I am constantly waking up from my couch naps to find tiny versions of Hawaii built out of legos and old popsicle sticks.
And when I'm awake, she sits with me in my big pile of cats, and blankets-- and we read.
We've been reading a lot.
We've been reading so very much, that she is now reading to me most of the time.
On good days, she takes my hand and pulls me up the road, past the troll, to the Fremont library to check out new "I Can Read Books", and then we bring them home and she devours them, along with juice and goldfish crackers.

I love to watch her face as she works out the words, the little sprockets in her head churning out all these sounds- "apple" and "puppy" and "time"-- with a little mumble to herself that the e at the end makes the i say it's name.  
It's so incredibly amazing.

Tiny little squirt, standing at the party with the Romans and Shakespeare, and Charlotte Bronte.  All the great readers and writers of the world, here comes my girl.  Smarty pants.
I'm a proud mommy.

   

11 weeks :)

Well. 

It's been an exciting couple of months.  Everything with the shoes, and our trip to Hawaii, and watching Violet learn to read and swim.    

And all that time, the most wonderful little secret stirring around...  

It's been a crazy year, with huge ups and enormous downs... and maybe that's why it was all the more amazing yesterday to see in simple hues of grey and white this eensy-beensy bean 11-week child waving around, kicking these wildly strong legs.  

We are cautiously ecstatic, but signs are good. 

If all continues to go well, April 11th can't come soon enough.      

  

Quiet

I was talking with a friend today, and I remembered something that happened about a year and a half ago--  It was a quiet afternoon following some sort of very social morning.  V  went into her room and shut the door.  And she didn't come out.  She was 3 years old at the time, and so naturally I felt a little worried at how silent everything was.  After 10 minutes, I knocked.  What are you doing?  Are you ok?  

And her answer was this mind opening moment of clarity for me: 

I'm ok. I'm working.  I'll come out when I'm done.  

She was building a tea party of great complexity with every animal and bottle cap and marble she could find... 

  

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking.  

Have you heard of this book?  If not, you should google it, or check it out, or just jump in and start reading it.  My friend, who I love so incredibly much, and who happens to be one of the most lovely extroverts I know, also read it and adored it.  

Whether or not you consider yourself an introvert, it's a book that is worth reading. --One that I wish every single one of my school teachers had read growing up.  Anyone who ever felt as kid that Kick Ball is a bit like Lord of the Flies revisited could relate.  Especially now, raising a very introverted child, this book truly made me realize that being an introvert is not something to overcome.  When nurtured and supported, Introverts can be some of the best innovators, teachers, thinkers, creators, and even leaders.  I feel like I finally truly see it in my own kid-- and I am at peace with it, because I see it in myself too-- that all she really needs is down time each day, a quiet space for her mind to stretch and recharge.  Anyway, I could say more, but really.... just go read it.  It's short.  And it will help us all understand each other a little better.     

  

Quiet child-- go inside your Rubik's Cube.  

Take your time to line up all the greens and reds and blues as only you know how 

and come out laughing.    

--And watching,
mapping every word we say
in inky eyes, wide and brown
to translate all the noises into craft and cake
and stories that we'll read someday in magazines
or framed on walls in some museum
built for quiet contemplating minds.     

Monday in June.

Rainy June morning, after all that sunshine.  It provides a quiet space and moment.  Here we are-- Off the sidewalks, out of the sun, inside making lists.  Organizing work.  Did I clean my brushes from the other day?  Some old bank statement under little torn off bits of sponge.  And scraps of tissue paper kept from Violet's birthday that I thought were sweet and might use again for something.
A bottle cap, a spoon, a dried up tea bag in a cup.
Pencil shavings; sketches waiting to be hole-punched.
This is my desk.
Hello Monday.  Tired, aren't we.
Rub your eyes, this week is on and you are still in slipper feet.

Ceremonies

Ceremony season has nested fully in our home, with cakes and velvet regalia; flowers, balloon animals, champagne, family filtering through in soft-leathered shoes, and phone calls from those who are far away.

Yesterday was Tyler's commencement; He was hooded for his doctoral degree.  It was one of those rare exquisite moments that for years to come will be displayed in my mind as little snap shots--  His royal purple gown, and puff-pie pillow hat-- very medieval looking-- and his official hooding, with all his future colleagues cheering on.  Violet on her chair, starfish hands waving for her dad who began this whole endeavor before she was even alive.  

There is something special about these moments where we sit and gaze so intently at the life and achievements of someone close to us.   I remember as a kid watching my dad give talks.  All of these eyes focused on him, and the applause that would come at the beginning-- even before he had said anything-- it always made me realize (even if just for that moment) that my dad was in and of the world.  And it was no different with my mom.  She ran a toy shop, and I would sit and watch her running the counter, handling money, chatting up the customers, winning smiles and hearts.  So in charge.  

I think as adults we don't do this intense gazing enough.  But these ceremonies take us back to that spot, watching from the bleachers, as those who are closest to us achieve a formal place in the world of doers of great things.  

_____

As an interesting epilogue to yesterday's festivities, today Violet had her first ballet recital.  All done up in stars and tights and nerves, I left her with her dance-mates back stage.  It was a very strange feeling to just leave her there, and then sit and wait in the audience for the show to begin.  She kept saying to me this morning "yesterday we cheered for my daddy who was on stage, and today you guys will cheer for me"-- this little mantra going through her head, I could tell, up until the very end.  

Really remarkably strange-- sitting and watching my kid from afar.  Really watching her with that same intense graduation gaze.  As much as we're focused on our kids, I think (at least personally) it must be very rare that I actually take the time to silently just watch her like that, as her own little person with goals and hopes and dreams.  

I expected her to be fearful and miserable up there...  but she was beaming.  Costumes and dancing, friends, music, applause.  It was overdone and silly, and she was absolutely in heaven.  And then the best part: her glowing self pride at the end of it all.  Like she had done exactly what she had always wanted to do.
Goodness, I love my family.  And phew, I'm happy it's summer.  Time for a little rest and woods, maybe?  

This is Mother's Day

Yes indeed, tiny love, this is Moth Ers Day.  Thank you for this card, and for the 10-bead necklace of little plastic hearts.  With your eyes an inch away from mine, your single-breath decree: mama, you can wear this all day it's for you and it's made of hearts because I love you.  

Dress-wearing, garden-digging, baseball-watching, breakfasting like royalty.
This is Mother's Day.  And I miss my mother who is far away and enjoys all of these things.
Distance is so hard, they say, and it always is true.

With Oregon and half of California in between us, I sent my mom a book with a published poem, my own little version of a 10-bead necklace-- Because she is marvelous, and I am still wide-eyed and wishing I could do more.  I was remembering today how she taught me all of my times-tables in third grade.  She let me jump on the bed while reciting my seven and eights, which are tricky.

Mom, you taught me what motherhood is all about.
It is hard, and fun too.  A bit like learning your eights while jumping on the bed.
I love you, and I love my girl who ended the day by making me a red and green Christmas Zoo out of legos (because, as she poignantly put, Christmas is a really fun and special treat to have on Mother's Day).  
This is Mother's Day, and this is Motherhood.  What a kick!  She's such a little friend.

Oyster uncertainty friends.

Baseball friends.

Dress friends. 

****

Thank you, Mom, for finding in your 

wallet every year a spot for my school 

photo.  Even in 8th grade, when my face 

was mostly dental work, you found a space.  

What a gift of confidence this gave me, just 

knowing in my goofy grin you took a little 

pride.  

And even now, in my adulthood, as I 

wait in grocery lines, it makes me smile to 

remember hidden deep within your wallet, 

you have aligned my face with opera stars 

on ticket stubs, your favorite cookie fortune, 

and that one-hundred-dollar bill 

you found in 1984.  

Speaking the Language

When my kid is sick I find myself doing all these things my own mother used to do.  I set her up in this little picture of what I hope will help-- there's a small bowl of apple slices, a glass of water, a stuffed toy to hug, a kitchen pot just in case the breakfast toast comes up.  She sleeps in socks, under a pile of pillows and blankets, with the mid-day light of Thursday filling up the room.

Sometimes I feel so completely inadequate as a mom.  Maybe we all do.
When I was trying to learn Italian I remember someone telling me that you couldn't do it by translating in your head everything into English.  You had to just start thinking in Italian.
So uccello isn't bird.  Uccello is just uccello.  
I think about that a lot.
Motherhood is its own foreign language, but maybe it's something like Latin-- and some days I can't quite crack the code or get into the flow of it because it only really exists in poetry.  So I'm making up all these things to fill in the gaps as I go along, and just trying to think poetically instead of logically.

So I'll hold your foot while you rest, and know that somehow it helps.  Later, we'll do puzzles to help reduce your fever.