ode to my firstborn

my boy turned 5 today. i also coincedentally saw a picture of him at 9 months. it still looks like him...he'll always look that way.the big round head, skinny legs, serious eyes about to break into a mischevious grin. this child, my Cole. today is for him. this kid grabbed me by the heart, i mean, every single valve and vein. i could not imagine this feeling i had when i set eyes on him. it was this incredulous moment of how could this beautiful creature come from joe and i? as he grew (and continued to be a crummy sleeper, i might add), his capacity for love and gentleness amazed me. his smile made every sleepless night bearable. it still does. only now, his smile gets him out of the tantrums he's learning to throw, the verbal jabs he tries to make, but knows are wrong, so he whispers them. this kid to whom I am the sun, the moon, the stars....his sense of humor is remarkably sharp and sweet, and he's stubborn as a post set in concrete. but this kid can love. this kid can show compassion and generosity and empathy. he humbles me so often in his spirit of "take this, i love it, but take it because you'll love it too." i love you, my son. i am so achingly proud of the little spirit you are. i take joy in your uniqueness, and revel in each new thing you learn and teach me. you are my firstborn, you taught me love. happy birthday, buggy.

a brief love note

this is about joe. i talk about my kids. i talk about my chickens. i talk about my food. a lot about my food. i should talk about my joe, my beloved, my compass. he pisses me off a lot. but mostly he just keeps me headed in the right direction. the first time i saw him, i knew he was military. his demeanor, his posture, his lack of smile. then i got to know him...and his eyes, his sparkly, mischevious eyes bore straight into my heart. frankly, he scared the crap out of me, but i couldnt' get enough. he won.
the man wrote me bad poetry that melted me. he took me to paris. he gave me two little boys, and brought with him his two older, wonderful children. he gave me his heart and i gave him mine. he has honor and nobility and is generous to others, with his time, and sometimes forgets to save some for me, but it's usually okay because i know he is lifting up someone who needs it more than i do....because I have him and God. i'm a lucky woman and for all our rocky moments, months, years, he's still the one i want next to me every night, who i want walking in the door every evening, and whom i want to bring me coffee every morning.

she felt like the fresh prince

Lynard Skynard told her to turn it up...so she did. Sweet Home Alabama rattled the speakers on her dilapidated, but much loved Volvo wagon, Velma. She got that rare feeling today that one only gets in early summer, though, summer was late this year. It had been a long, dark, wet Spring and everyone was getting punchy. It was July 3 and the sun finally shone.

She rolled the window down a little further, to inhale this feeling. The air vibrated with love and goodwill, excited people with campers and barbeques jammed the highway and it was okay with her. Her hair looked good, the music was loud. The girl, though not so much a girl anymore, felt young and beautiful. When this feeling hits, all the hard stuff just kind of seemed unimportant. And all of these thing, gathered behind her ribs in a bursty glee. It was good to be her.

a life like mine

yesterday, today looked grim. i had a sick kid. complete with puke...on bedclothes, clothes, carpets, couches....yesterday, i did load after load of laundry, carried a bleach bottle in a holster, snuggled little buddies and got prepared for another day like it, but maybe with me or my other son puking, also. But today, Mother's Day, I woke up, not having been awaken in the night to cries of horror at being covered in dinner, revisited, but somewhat refreshed....pit pat pit pat...baby one, piles in....taptaptaptap...baby two scurries to the other side, snuggles into his usual spot. thump, thump...daddy's already up, coffee is brewing, tv is cued for cartoons. Baby One gets antsy, up to watch a little curious george. Baby Two, my tiny Bean, burrows deeper, eyes still heavy and half dozes on my chest for awhile. This kid is almost 30 pounds but I won't move him for the world. His blond flyaway hair tickles my nose but feels like angels kisses and smells like sleep and last nights bath. this is what i was meant to do, i think. i'm the "joyful mother of little children." i'm best here, with my arms around a small child, who needs to hear my heart beat.
There was no more sick today. There was much needed sunshine, both kids in underwear only, playing in the sprinkler while i puttered in the garden, preparing for the pea growth spurt, labeling newly planted starts, my thoughtful husband taking care of our every need. the rain started dropping in big slow drops seconds after the chops got pulled off the grill for supper...
the kids are in the bath now, dad is taking care of it all for me. just leaned on the door frame, watching the birds skitter around the yard between drops, while eating a sweetly huge strawberry, glass of wine in the other hand. i could get used to a life like mine. i think i will.

movements of small things

i was driving today, in the rain, and the hills are so green...it looks like a child's cowlicked hair, full of movement and whorls...the deciduous, laced and weaving between the evergreens,unruly and standing straight up in the air. the sheep, white against the fields, with their breed marks,standing red on their woolly backs, a true scarlet letter. they all looked so droopy out there, not sure if it was the rain, or their impending pregnancies, or just because they are sheep, but they still looked beautiful to me. although i love the sun, there is little as striking as an oregon spring with it's dark, ominous skies, and the emerald world below it...speckled with animals, flowers, it throbs with life and freshness, and sparkles if the tiniest sliver of sunshine hits it. we do, I believe, live in God's country.

the gentleness of nothing

there are days when nothing comes gently. and there are days when there is a gentle nothingness...not the sad nothingness...but the quiet of it, which is really quite something. i struggled today with ego and pride, and then it hit me that decisions that were made were made with a higher purpose than mine. And things have a way of edging into place, quietly and gently sometimes, as if nothing at all has changed, but it has...the same way your children grow, gently and quietly, hidden by tantrums and sand in their crevices, cheerios in the light fixtures, but then, suddenly they are bigger....this is how life is, so often, the loud parts distract us from the small snuggling in of things...life's way of pretending to yawn whilst it drops it's arm around our shoulders at the movies...suddenly it's there, the weight of it all heavy and warm and certain.

long day pondering

i think perhaps this blog is misnamed...of course, maybe not. i started it when some friends and i really did have martini playdates...now it's mainly just me, tootling around my yard, surrounded by grubby and adorable, inquisitive blond boys, sometimes holding a vodka tonic, more often, a diet coke, or water with lemon. i'm watching my chickens grow. watching my growing children watching them and the world with wonder. every day my youngest demonstrates a new word, a new daredevil act, or best yet, a new act of love and gentleness. every day my older son, surprises me with insight, and yesterday decided no more kisses. i do anyway, a little because it sends him into gales of burbly giggles, but mostly, because i need to. i need him to need me still, even as i let him learn who he is. and i need that soft baby skin to yield to my mommyness. he's too 4, too fast. i watch the seasons change, feel me change...back and forth and back again. participate in my life as fully as i can. i do know it's a short one. the biggest heartbreak, but joy, also, of life is it's fleeting quality. i am sad to see sadness all around me, when we could be lifting our faces to the sun, breathing and going a new direction. i think about children and food and sustainability and love....and how to make these loves of mine last and feel cherished. how to use these powers for good. i'll get back to you on that...