Summertime Blues

The crickets sang in the grasses.  They sang the song of summer's ending, a sad, monotonous song.  "Summer is over and gone," they sang.  "Over and gone, over and gone.  Summer is dying, dying."  

The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last forever.  Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year - the days when summer is changing into fall - the crickets spread the rumor of sadness and change.

Everybody heard the song of the crickets.  Avery and Fern Arable heard it as they walked the dusty road.  They knew that school would soon begin again.  The young geese heard it and knew that they would never be little goslings again.  Charlotte heard it and knew that she hadn't much time left.  Mrs. Zuckerman, at work in the kitchen, heard the crickets, and a sadness came over her, too.  "Another summer gone," she sighed.  Lurvy, at work building a crate for Wilbur, heard the song and knew it was time to dig potatoes.

"Summer is over and gone," repeated the crickets.   "How many nights till frost?" sang the crickets.  "Good-bye, summer, good-bye, good-bye!"

The sheep heard the crickets, and they felt so uneasy they broke a hole in the pasture fence and wandered up in to the field across the road.  The gander discovered the hole and led his family through, and they walked to the orchard and ate the apples that were lying on the ground.  A little maple tree in the swamp heard the cricket song and turned bright red with anxiety.

Heading into our fourth (!!!) year of grade school, I once again here these words from Charlotte's Web in my head and I get teary-eyed at the thought of my oldest going away from us again every weekday.

I hope he had enough fun this summer, made some lasting memories he will remember fondly - amongst the arguing with me and bickering with his brother, and all the terrible chores and projects I made him work on (and paid him for).  I hope he knows how much I love him, despite how much I yell and correct and admonish.  I hope he remembers who he is and how special he is as he walks back onto the bus and into school, where not everyone is interested in being his friend.

I hope he continues to love school and anticipate it eagerly each day, even as the "real" grades start to roll in.  I hope next summer, he's still mostly satisfied to hang out at home with me, and his little brother and little sister (although I know each year he will become increasingly more attached to friends).

I hope that even as he becomes ever more aware and self-conscious about how he interacts with his mama in public (he didn't want to dance with me in front of others at our MOMS Club end-of-summer dance party and shies away from my head rubs and back scratches in church), I hope he will always dance with me at home.

And maybe, just maybe, I hope he'll miss us just a little bit, too.

"How can you have any pudding, if you don't eat your beans?"

I always feel ahead of the game if we can somehow get a vegetable in for breakfast.  And if it also contains chocolate, well, win-win.  A couple of delicious breakfast muffins where the "good stuff" just blends right in:

Double-chocolate Zucchini Muffin
Carrot Chocolate Chip Muffins

The Flowers in the Weeds

These days. I am "in the weeds."  Or "the rough," as golfers might call it.  The messy, the dirty, the untamed and unkempt, the lost.  The tough days.  Those long days in the short years you've heard about parenthood.  There are diapers and potty accidents.  Sticky, drippy messes and muddy footprints.  There are always more dishes to wash, more laundry to do, more toys to pick up, more housecleaning to carry out, more cooking to plan and accomplish.  I spend so much of my day taking care of my family - which I do willingly and humbly.  But I often reach the end of the day and wonder how many times I actually looked at my children and smiled.  How many kind words did I offer, as opposed to words of direction, correction, and - more often than I'd like to admit - derision?

I am a mediocre housekeeper and that is when I exert my best effort.  When the kids ask for my attention (or pull on my skirt to get it, as our 18-month old does), I always have just one more "little thing," "one more minute," before I can give them my attention and I step around them, pull away from them, move outside of them. Even once I do, my mind wonders to what I'm cooking for dinner or the next load of laundry to be gathered, and I watch the clock, counting the seconds until I'm up again and moving.  And I know they have figured it out - they are not stupid - I see the difference in their expectations of me and my husband, they know who will take the time to wrestle with them and who has just "one more thing" to do before they can join.

This weekend, I spent two nights away from the family and vowed upon my return to sit with my children and listen - there should be no reason for me to feel like there were chores for me to do, returning late on a Sunday afternoon.  I let them surround me, squeeze in beside me, wrap their hands and arms around me, assail me with their stories and hugs.  It felt wonderful and I promised myself I would try each day to find a moment where I settle in among them - instead of holding myself above them, outside of them - and let them consume me. Let myself be consumed by them.

What I hope to find is that letting myself just sit and recharge with my charges - the reason for the rest of my busy-ness, the blessings that give that work - and my life - meaning  - will help me get more accomplished, not less; or at least not care so much about the weeds around me.

Self-care Goodie Bag for Mamas

For the women in your life undergoing stressful life changes and transitions - a new baby, surgery, a death in the family, a new job - a gentle, generous reminder to take care of themselves first.

A self-care goodies bag for young moms (summer version):

Something fun, pretty, but light to read, like Family Circle.

Something delicious and nutritious like Luna Protein Bars.

Something refreshing to drink, like Madhava's Luscious Lemonade.

Something cleansing and invigorating like Yes To's cleansing face wipes.

Something that makes her feel pretty, but is also nourishing, like Burt's Bees Tinted Lip Balm.

Something soothing and pleasing to the senses, like a gently scented candle.

Something for creative expression and stress relief like a set of colored pencils and mandala coloring pages, like Design Originals Creative Coloring Mandalas that include uplifting quotes with each coloring page.

Return

So very thankful for the beautifully chaotic mess of a house I returned to this evening, after a weekend away.

So thankful for the small hands and arms that reached for me, grabbed me, held me, encircled me.

So thankful to be needed and wanted and treasured.

So thankful to lie on my bed and be surrounded, to sit in the rocking chair and be surrounded.

So thankful for the chance to be let myself be surrounded again tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that.

So thankful for the embrace of the chaos, the chaos of the embrace.

The messy days and life with littles.

Amen.

Saying Grace

From a recent acquisition, A Grateful Heart:  Daily Blessings for the Evening Meal from Buddha to the Beatles

A Prayer for the Children... by Ina J. Hughes

We pray for the children
who put chocolate fingers everywhere,
who like to be tickled,
who stomp in puddles and ruin their new pants, who sneak Popsicles before supper,
who erase holes in math workbooks,
who can never find their shoes.

And we pray for those
who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire, who’ve never squeaked across the floor in new sneakers, who never had crayons to count,
who are born in places we wouldn’t be caught dead, who never go to the circus,
who live in an X-rated world.

We pray for children
who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions, who sleep with the dog and bury goldfish,
who give hugs in a hurry and forget their lunch money, who cover themselves with Band-Aids and sing off-key, who squeeze toothpaste all over the sink,
who slurp their soup.

And we pray for those
who never get dessert,
who watch their parents watch them die, who have no safe blanket to drag behind, who can’t find any bread to steal,
who don’t have any rooms to clean up, whose pictures aren’t on anybody’s dresser, whose monsters are real.

We pray for children
who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,
who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food, who like ghost stories,
who shove dirty clothes under the bed,
who never rinse out the tub,
who get visits from the tooth fairy,
who don't like to be kissed in front of the school,
who squirm in church or temple or mosque
and scream in the phone,
whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.

And we pray for those
whose nightmares come in the daytime,
who will eat anything,
who aren't spoiled by anybody,
who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep, who live and move, but have no being.

We pray for children who want to be carried, and for those who must.
For those we never give up on,
and for those who never get a chance.

For those we smother with our love,
and for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it.

My bedtime routine

(Daily prompt from The Creative Notebook)

My evenings are full and fast.  My oldest disembarks from the bus around 4:40 p.m.  We come home, he plays for half an hour and then we wrestle over homework while I try to make dinner and keep the younger two somewhat appeased.  Dinner is generally at 6 p.m.  Kids' bath times start around 7 p.m. - Jeremy handles those when he's home while I clean up the kitchen.  I put Adelaide down between 7:30 and 8, while Jeremy puts the boys down at the same time after bath.  Once Adelaide is down and the boys are in their beds, I sing to Graham while stroking his head, then rub Gideon's back for a few minutes.  Hopefully, all of the dishes have been done by this point, so I can plop myself down on the couch and laugh at a favorite show or two with Jeremy.

I head upstairs around 9:30 for my bath (not shower); I like to read in the bathtub.  I push through brushing teeth and taking vitamins afterwards, then slide into bed and read until my eyes can't stay open anymore, which is about 5 minutes.  I turn out the light and usually slide off into sleep effortlessly - these days, I can't tell you what runs through my mind after the light goes off.  Not much.  The restlessness usually comes later in the night, after a baby feeding, when I worry about the oldest's attention span and social development and curse myself for yelling too much the day before.

The nights are pretty routine and set in stone, even if they are still overfilled with yelling on my part.  The mornings continue to be a challenge.